# Calculating 'to the power of...' in Excel



## dmurfitt (Nov 27, 2002)

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could tell me how to calculate a formula in excel as, for example:

=A1+(B1*B2) And what I need is the brackets to be to the power of -1 or +1. Basically this is to calculate interest or inflation (depending if the power of 1 is + or -).

Thanks a lot,
Dan


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## Yorkshire Guy (Dec 9, 2003)

hi dmurgitt,

The character you want is the caret, like a little roof, on my keyboard it is shift + 6 (not numeric keys) along the top row.

So 5 to the power of 3 would be 5^3.

Anything to the power of 1 is the same, so why do you want that?

Cheers
Hew


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## dmurfitt (Nov 27, 2002)

Sorry I was just using an example. If it's a plus value it calculates interest, if it's minus it calculates inflation (does that sound about right?).

Thanks a lot for your help mate,
Dan


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## cristobal03 (Aug 5, 2005)

Actually, I don't think your statement was entirely accurate, hew.

x ^ 1 = x, that is correct. However, I'm pretty sure that x ^ -1 = (1 / x).

Uh, so, yeah, there really was no point to me bumping this thread. Gotta go...

chris.


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