Why I am not getting True when testing equation?
Your expression is only true if a
is positive.
Simplify[a^-x == (1/a)^x, a > 0]
True
You can use PowerExpand
to find out the ratio in general:
PowerExpand[(1/a)^x a^x, Assumptions->True]
E^(2 I π x Floor[1/2 + Arg[a]/(2 π)])
For generic x
this expression is only 1 when
Floor[1/2+Arg[a]/(2 π)] == 0
Using Reduce
gives:
Reduce[Floor[1/2 + Arg[a]/(2 π)] == 0, a, Complexes]
(Im[a] != 0 && Re[a] < 0) || Re[a] >= 0
So the equality is only untrue for negative reals (i.e., along the branch cut for logs and powers).
Check with Simplify
:
Simplify[a^-x == (1/a)^x, (Im[a] != 0 && Re[a] < 0) || Re[a] >= 0]
True