Calculators Troubleshooting: (-i)^4 Calculation Error on TI-36X Pro Calculator

[moouers]

I'm curious if anyone knows why my calculator would return "Domain Error" when calculating (-i)^4 on my TI-36X Pro?

((-i)^2)^2 works just fine on the machine, and (-i)^4 works just fine on my TI-83 Plus.

Any ideas?

 

[Mark44]

I'm curious if anyone knows why my calculator would return "Domain Error" when calculating (-i)^4 on my TI-36X Pro?

((-i)^2)^2 works just fine on the machine, and (-i)^4 works just fine on my TI-83 Plus.

Any ideas?

The only thing I can think of is that the calculator might be using logs to calculate the value. The following is an identity for real x > 0.

xⁿ = (e^ln(x))⁴ = e^4ln(x).

It's possible that it is programmed to be able to calculate i² and (-i)², but for other powers it uses a different algorithm

Consult your user manual - it might have some information about the domains of the functions it can calculate. I'm sur they have a web site, and they might have a site where you can ask questions about the specific models.

 

[moouers]

Thank you, Mark. I apologize for not recognizing your post sooner! I checked my user manual and it only says that it cannot compute i to a power greater than 3.