Knowledge Base

Solution 40237: TI-30XII Solar and TI-30XII Battery displays Domain Error when Entering Certain Fractional Exponents.

Why does the TI-30XII Solar and TI-30XII Battery displays Domain Error when Entering Certain Fractional Exponents?

The caret key has limitations for the functions it will accept for Y^X. If the below condition is met it will give a domain error:
Y<0, X<1, and 1/X is not an integer

For example the problems below will return a domain error since they meet the restriction above:

(-25)^(2/3)
(-280)^(3/7)
(-2)^(3/5)
 
To workaround this limitation you can rewrite these functions using an identity x^(y/z) = z xRoot x^y:

3 xRoot (-25)^2
7 xRoot (-280)^3
5 xRoot (-2)^3

Please see the TI-30XIIS/B and TI-30XS MultiView guidebooks for additional information.