Class 8 Maths Part 1 Chapter 2, Power Play, starts with a thought experiment: folding a 0.001 cm sheet of paper 46 times makes a stack thick enough to reach the Moon! From there it develops exponential notation, laws of exponents, negative exponents and scientific notation.
What Class 8 Maths Chapter 2 Covers
2.1 Experiencing the Power Play and 2.2 Exponential Notation introduce powers through paper folding, the Magical Pond doubling puzzle and combinatorics (PINs and locks), then establish the product, quotient and power laws of exponents.
2.3 The Other Side of Powers and 2.4 Powers of 10 extend exponents to zero and negative integers (a⁰ = 1, a⁻ⁿ = 1/aⁿ) and introduce scientific notation for astronomical and microscopic numbers.
2.5 Linear vs Exponential Growth and A Pinch of History contrast linear addition with exponential doubling and close with the Tremendous in Ten! number game.
Exercises in Chapter 2
- Figure it Out exercise sets after each major section, with complete answer keys at the end of the chapter.
Read Class 8 Maths Chapter 2 Online
More Chapters
- Previous: Chapter 1: A Square and a Cube
- Next: Chapter 3: A Story of Numbers
- Hindi medium: Class 8 Maths Part 1 Chapter 2 PDF in Hindi (Ganita Prakash)
- All Maths chapters and the other Class 8 books: Class 8 NCERT books 2026-27
- All Class 1 to 12 NCERT Textbooks: NCERT Books PDF (Class 1–12)
- Every book chapter by chapter: NCERT chapter wise PDF
FAQ
Why is any non-zero number raised to the power 0 equal to 1?
Extending the pattern where dividing by the base reduces the exponent by 1 gives a⁰ = a¹ / a = 1 for any non-zero base a.
What is scientific notation in Class 8 Maths Chapter 2?
Writing a number in the form a × 10ⁿ where 1 ≤ a < 10 and n is an integer, making very large and very small numbers easy to compare.