**The topic is exponents**

Question

A candy maker is making taffy. He starts with one long piece of taffy and cuts it into 3 pieces. He then takes each resulting piece and cuts it into three pieces. He then takes each of these resulting pieces and cuts it into three pieces. He continues this process.

1. The candy maker gets a special order for 243 pieces of peppermint flavored taffy. How many rounds of cuts will he have to make to get this many pieces?

{how do I solve #1? I'm confused on how to approach this problem in order to find the solution}

Answer 1

well, 243 = 3^5

Note the pattern in the number of pieces
1 = 3^0
3 = 3*1 = 3^1
9 = 3*3^1 = 3^2
...

Answer 2

3^0

Answer 3

A candy maker is making taffy. He starts with one long piece of taffy and cuts it into 3 pieces. He then takes each resulting piece and cuts it into three pieces. He then takes each of these resulting pieces and cuts it into three pieces. He continues this process.

How many pieces will the candy maker have after the first 4 rounds of cuts? Write the answer as an exponent and simplified.