Solve: Finding the Negative Absolute Value of 3⁴

The negative sign is outside the absolute value bars! This means we calculate $|3^4| = 81$ first, then apply the negative to get $-81$.

$-|3^4| = -81$ (negative outside), but $|-3^4| = |-(81)| = |-81| = 81$ (negative inside). The position of the negative sign completely changes the answer!

Always calculate the exponent first! Order of operations says: Parentheses, Exponents, then other operations. So $3^4 = 81$, then $|81| = 81$.

Absolute value itself is always positive or zero. However, when there's a negative sign outside the absolute value bars (like $-|x|$), the final result will be negative!

$(-3)^4 = 81$ because negative times negative four times equals positive. Then $-|81| = -81$. The result is the same!