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Etymology

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History

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Terminology

Integer exponents

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Rational exponents

Real exponents

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Complex exponents with a positive real base

Non-integer exponents with a complex base

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Irrationality and transcendence

Integer powers in algebra

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Powers of sets

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Repeated exponentiation
 •

Limits of powers

Efficient computation with integer exponents

Iterated functions

In programming languages

See also

Notes

References

Exponentiation

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Power (mathematics))

"Exponent" redirects here. For other uses, see Exponent (disambiguation).

Graphs of y = bx for various

bases b: base 10, base e, base 2, base ⁠1/2⁠. Each curve passes through the point (0,
1) because any nonzero number raised to the power of 0 is 1. At x = 1, the value of y equals the
base because any number raised to the power of 1 is the number itself.

Arithmetic operations

• v

• t

• e

Addition (+)

Subtraction (−)

Multiplication (×)

Division (÷)
 Exponentiation (^)

nth root (√)

Logarithm (log)

• v

• t

• e

In mathematics, exponentiation, denoted bn, is an operation involving two numbers:

the base, b, and the exponent or power, n.[1] When n is a positive integer, exponentiation
corresponds to repeated multiplication of the base: that is, bn is the product of

multiplying n bases:[1] In particular, .

The exponent is usually shown as a superscript to the right of the base as bn or in computer
code as b^n. This binary operation is often read as "b to the power n"; it may also be called
"b raised to the nth power", "the nth power of b",[2] or most briefly "b to the n".

The above definition of immediately implies several properties, in particular the

multiplication rule:[nb 1]

That is, when multiplying a base raised to one power times the same base raised to another

power, the powers add. Extending this rule to the power zero gives , and dividing both sides

by gives . That is, the multiplication rule implies the definition A similar argument

implies the definition for negative integer powers: That is, extending the multiplication rule

gives . Dividing both sides by gives . This also implies the definition for fractional

powers: For example, , meaning , which is the definition of square root: .

The definition of exponentiation can be extended in a natural way (preserving the multiplication

rule) to define for any positive real base and any real number exponent . More
involved definitions allow complex base and exponent, as well as certain types of matrices as
base or exponent.

Exponentiation is used extensively in many fields,

including economics, biology, chemistry, physics, and computer science, with applications
such as compound interest, population growth, chemical reaction kinetics, wave behavior,
and public-key cryptography.

Etymology

[edit]

The term exponent originates from the Latin exponentem, the present participle of exponere,
meaning "to put forth".[3] The term power (Latin: potentia, potestas, dignitas) is a
mistranslation[4][5] of the ancient Greek δύναμις (dúnamis, here: "amplification"[4]) used by
the Greek mathematician Euclid for the square of a line,[6] following Hippocrates of Chios.[7]

History

[edit]

Antiquity

[edit]

The Sand Reckoner

[edit]

Main article: The Sand Reckoner

In The Sand Reckoner, Archimedes proved the law of exponents, 10a · 10b = 10a+b, necessary to
manipulate powers of 10.[8] He then used powers of 10 to estimate the number of grains of sand
that can be contained in the universe.

Islamic Golden Age

[edit]

Māl and kaʿbah ("square" and "cube")

[edit]

In the 9th century, the Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi used the terms ‫( َمال‬māl,
"possessions", "property") for a square—the Muslims, "like most mathematicians of those and
earlier times, thought of a squared number as a depiction of an area, especially of land, hence
property"[9]—and ‫( َك ْع َبة‬Kaʿbah, "cube") for a cube, which later Islamic mathematicians
represented in mathematical notation as the letters mīm (m) and kāf (k), respectively, by the
15th century, as seen in the work of Abu'l-Hasan ibn Ali al-Qalasadi.[10]

15th–18th century

[edit]

Introducing exponents

[edit]
Nicolas Chuquet used a form of exponential notation in the 15th century, for example 122 to
represent 12x2.[11] This was later used by Henricus Grammateus and Michael Stifel in the 16th
century. In the late 16th century, Jost Bürgi would use Roman numerals for exponents in a way
similar to that of Chuquet, for example iii4 for 4x3.[12]

"Exponent"; "square" and "cube"

[edit]

The word exponent was coined in 1544 by Michael Stifel.[13][14] In the 16th century, Robert
Recorde used the terms "square", "cube", "zenzizenzic" (fourth power), "sursolid" (fifth),
"zenzicube" (sixth), "second sursolid" (seventh), and "zenzizenzizenzic" (eighth).[9] "Biquadrate"
has been used to refer to the fourth power as well.

Modern exponential notation

[edit]

In 1636, James Hume used in essence modern notation, when in L'algèbre de Viète he
wrote Aiii for A3.[15] Early in the 17th century, the first form of our modern exponential notation
was introduced by René Descartes in his text titled La Géométrie; there, the notation is
introduced in Book I.[16]

I designate ... aa, or a2 in multiplying a by itself; and a3 in multiplying it once more again by a, and
thus to infinity.

— René Descartes, La Géométrie

Some mathematicians (such as Descartes) used exponents only for powers greater than two,
preferring to represent squares as repeated multiplication. Thus they would write polynomials,
for example, as ax + bxx + cx3 + d.

"Indices"

[edit]

Samuel Jeake introduced the term indices in 1696.[6] The term involution was used
synonymously with the term indices, but had declined in usage[17] and should not be confused
with its more common meaning.

Variable exponents, non-integer exponents

[edit]

In 1748, Leonhard Euler introduced variable exponents, and, implicitly, non-integer exponents
by writing:

Consider exponentials or powers in which the exponent itself is a variable. It is clear that
quantities of this kind are not algebraic functions, since in those the exponents must be
constant.[18]

20th century

[edit]
As calculation was mechanized, notation was adapted to numerical capacity by conventions in
exponential notation. For example Konrad Zuse introduced floating point arithmetic in his 1938
computer Z1. One register contained representation of leading digits, and a second contained
representation of the exponent of 10. Earlier Leonardo Torres Quevedo contributed Essays on
Automation (1914) which had suggested the floating-point representation of numbers. The more
flexible decimal floating-point representation was introduced in 1946 with a Bell
Laboratories computer. Eventually educators and engineers adopted scientific notation of
numbers, consistent with common reference to order of magnitude in a ratio scale.[19]

For instance, in 1961 the School Mathematics Study Group developed the notation in
connection with units used in the metric system.[20][21]

Exponents also came to be used to describe units of measurement and quantity dimensions.
For instance, since force is mass times acceleration, it is measured in kg m/sec2. Using M for
mass, L for length, and T for time, the expression M L T–2 is used in dimensional analysis to
describe force.[22][23]

Terminology

[edit]

The expression b2 = b · b is called "the square of b" or "b squared", because the area of a square
with side-length b is b2. (It is true that it could also be called "b to the second power", but "the
square of b" and "b squared" are more traditional)

Similarly, the expression b3 = b · b · b is called "the cube of b" or "b cubed", because the volume
of a cube with side-length b is b3.

When an exponent is a positive integer, that exponent indicates how many copies of the base
are multiplied together. For example, 35 = 3 · 3 · 3 · 3 · 3 = 243. The base 3 appears 5 times in the
multiplication, because the exponent is 5. Here, 243 is the 5th power of 3, or 3 raised to the 5th
power.

The word "raised" is usually omitted, and sometimes "power" as well, so 35 can be simply read
"3 to the 5th", or "3 to the 5".

Integer exponents

[edit]

The exponentiation operation with integer exponents may be defined directly from
elementary arithmetic operations.

Positive exponents

[edit]

The definition of the exponentiation as an iterated multiplication can be formalized by

using induction,[24] and this definition can be used as soon as one has
an associative multiplication:

The base case is

and the recurrence is

The associativity of multiplication implies that for any positive integers m and n,

and

Zero exponent

[edit]

As mentioned earlier, a (nonzero) number raised to the 0 power is 1:[25][1]

This value is also obtained by the empty product convention, which may be used in
every algebraic structure with a multiplication that has an identity. This way the formula

also holds for .

The case of 00 is controversial. In contexts where only integer powers are considered, the
value 1 is generally assigned to 00 but, otherwise, the choice of whether to assign it a value and
what value to assign may depend on context. For more details, see Zero to the power of zero.

Negative exponents

[edit]

Exponentiation with negative exponents is defined by the following identity, which holds for any
integer n and nonzero b:

.[1]

Raising 0 to a negative exponent is undefined but, in some circumstances, it may be interpreted

as infinity ( ).[26]

This definition of exponentiation with negative exponents is the only one that allows extending

the identity to negative exponents (consider the case ).

The same definition applies to invertible elements in a multiplicative monoid, that is,
an algebraic structure, with an associative multiplication and a multiplicative
identity denoted 1 (for example, the square matrices of a given dimension). In particular, in such

a structure, the inverse of an invertible element x is standardly denoted

Identities and properties

[edit]

"Laws of Indices" redirects here. For the horse, see Laws of Indices (horse).

The following identities, often called exponent rules, hold for all integer exponents, provided
that the base is non-zero:[1]

Unlike addition and multiplication, exponentiation is not commutative: for example, , but

reversing the operands gives the different value . Also unlike addition and multiplication,
exponentiation is not associative: for example, (23)2 = 82 = 64, whereas 2(32) = 29 = 512. Without
parentheses, the conventional order of operations for serial exponentiation in superscript
notation is top-down (or right-associative), not bottom-up[27][28][29] (or left-associative). That is,

which, in general, is different from

Powers of a sum

[edit]

The powers of a sum can normally be computed from the powers of the summands by
the binomial formula

However, this formula is true only if the summands commute (i.e. that ab = ba), which is implied
if they belong to a structure that is commutative. Otherwise, if a and b are, say, square
matrices of the same size, this formula cannot be used. It follows that in computer algebra,
many algorithms involving integer exponents must be changed when the exponentiation bases
do not commute. Some general purpose computer algebra systems use a different notation
(sometimes ^^ instead of ^) for exponentiation with non-commuting bases, which is then
called non-commutative exponentiation.

Combinatorial interpretation

[edit]

For nonnegative integers n and m, the value of nm is the number of functions from
a set of m elements to a set of n elements (see cardinal exponentiation). Such functions can be
represented as m-tuples from an n-element set (or as m-letter words from an n-letter alphabet).
Some examples for particular values of m and n are given in the following table:

The nm possible m-tuples of elements

nm
from the set {1, ..., n}

05 =
none
0

14 =
(1, 1, 1, 1)
1

23 = (1, 1, 1), (1, 1, 2), (1, 2, 1), (1, 2, 2), (2, 1, 1),
8 (2, 1, 2), (2, 2, 1), (2, 2, 2)

32 = (1, 1), (1, 2), (1, 3), (2, 1), (2, 2), (2, 3), (3,
9 1), (3, 2), (3, 3)

41 =
(1), (2), (3), (4)
4

50 =
()
1

Particular bases

[edit]

Powers of ten

[edit]

See also: Scientific notation

Main article: Power of 10

In the base ten (decimal) number system, integer powers of 10 are written as the digit 1 followed
or preceded by a number of zeroes determined by the sign and magnitude of the exponent. For
example, 103 = 1000 and 10−4 = 0.0001.

Exponentiation with base 10 is used in scientific notation to denote large or small numbers. For
instance, 299792458 m/s (the speed of light in vacuum, in metres per second) can be written
as 2.99792458×108 m/s and then approximated as 2.998×108 m/s.

SI prefixes based on powers of 10 are also used to describe small or large quantities. For
example, the prefix kilo means 103 = 1000, so a kilometre is 1000 m.

Powers of two

[edit]

Main article: Power of two

The first negative powers of 2 have special names: is a half; is a quarter.

Powers of 2 appear in set theory, since a set with n members has a power set, the set of all of
its subsets, which has 2n members.

Integer powers of 2 are important in computer science. The positive integer powers 2n give the
number of possible values for an n-bit integer binary number; for example, a byte may take 28 =
256 different values. The binary number system expresses any number as a sum of powers of 2,
and denotes it as a sequence of 0 and 1, separated by a binary point, where 1 indicates a power
of 2 that appears in the sum; the exponent is determined by the place of this 1: the nonnegative
exponents are the rank of the 1 on the left of the point (starting from 0), and the negative
exponents are determined by the rank on the right of the point.

Powers of one

[edit]

Every power of one equals: 1n = 1.

Powers of zero

[edit]

For a positive exponent n > 0, the nth power of zero is zero: 0n = 0. For a negative\

exponent, is undefined.

The expression 00 is either defined as , or it is left undefined.

Powers of negative one

[edit]

Since a negative number times another negative is positive, we have:

Because of this, powers of −1 are useful for expressing alternating sequences. For a similar
discussion of powers of the complex number i, see § nth roots of a complex number.

Large exponents

[edit]

The limit of a sequence of powers of a number greater than one diverges; in other words, the
sequence grows without bound:

bn → ∞ as n → ∞ when b > 1

This can be read as "b to the power of n tends to +∞ as n tends to infinity when b is greater than
one".

Powers of a number with absolute value less than one tend to zero:

bn → 0 as n → ∞ when |b| < 1

Any power of one is always one:

bn = 1 for all n for b = 1

Powers of a negative number alternate between positive and negative as n alternates

between even and odd, and thus do not tend to any limit as n grows.

If the exponentiated number varies while tending to 1 as the exponent tends to infinity, then the
limit is not necessarily one of those above. A particularly important case is

(1 + 1/n)n → e as n → ∞

See § Exponential function below.

Other limits, in particular those of expressions that take on an indeterminate form, are
described in § Limits of powers below.

Power functions

[edit]

Main article: Power law

Power functions for n = 1, 3, 5

Power functions for n = 2, 4, 6

Real functions of the form , where , are sometimes called power

functions.[30] When is an integer and , two primary families exist: for even, and
for odd. In general for , when is even will tend towards positive infinity with

increasing , and also towards positive infinity with decreasing . All graphs from the

family of even power functions have the general shape of , flattening more in the middle

as increases.[31] Functions with this kind of symmetry ( ) are called even functions.

When is odd, 's asymptotic behavior reverses from positive to negative .

For , will also tend towards positive infinity with increasing , but towards

negative infinity with decreasing . All graphs from the family of odd power functions have

the general shape of , flattening more in the middle as increases and losing all

flatness there in the straight line for . Functions with this kind of symmetry ( ) are
called odd functions.

For , the opposite asymptotic behavior is true in each case.[31]

Table of powers of decimal digits

[edit]

n n n n n n n n1
n 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
n9 0

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1
1 2 5
1 3 6 0
2 4 8 2 5 1
6 2 4 2
8 6 2
4

1 5
2 6
2 7 9 9
2 8 1 5
3 9 4 2 6 0
7 1 8 6
3 9 8 4
7 1
3 9

2
1 6 1
1 4 6
2 6 5 0
1 6 0 0 2
4 5 3 5 4
6 4 2 9 1
6 8 3 8
4 6 4
4 6 5
4
 7
6

1 9
3
1 7 9 7
3 9
1 6 5 8 5 6
2 1 0
5 2 2 6 1 3 5
5 2 6
5 5 2 2 1 6
5 2
5 5 2 2
5
5 5

1 6
1
2 0 0
4 6
1 7 7 0 4
2 6 7
3 2 7 9 7 6
6 1 6 9
6 9 7 9 7 6
6 5 6
6 6 3 6 1
6 1
6 9 7
6
6 6

2
4
5 8
1 8 0
1 7 2
2 1 2 3
3 6 6 4
4 4 7 3 5
7 4 8 4 7
9 0 6 5 3
3 0 8 5
1 4 4 6
7 0 2
9 3 0
1 4
7
9

1
1
1 0
2 3
2 6 7
3 0 4
4 6 7 3
5 2 9 2
6 0 2 7 7
8 1 7 7 1
4 9 1 7 4
2 6 1 7
6 4 2 1
8 5 7
4 1 8
2 2
6 2
8
4

5 3 3
5 4
6 3 4 8 4
7 9 3
8 5 1 7 7 8
9 2 0 0
1 6 4 8 4 6
9 4 4
1 4 2 2 7
9 6
1 9 0 8
7
4 4
 6 2 8 4
9 1 9 0
1

1
1
1 0
1 0
1 0 0
1 0 0
1 0 0 0
1 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0
0 0
0
0

Rational exponents

[edit]

From top to bottom: x1/8, x1/4, x1/2, x1, x2, x4, x8.

If x is a nonnegative real number, and n is a positive integer, or denotes the unique

nonnegative real nth root of x, that is, the unique nonnegative real number y such that

If x is a positive real number, and is a rational number, with p and q > 0 integers,

then is defined as

The equality on the right may be derived by setting and writing

If r is a positive rational number, 0r = 0, by definition.

All these definitions are required for extending the identity to rational exponents.

On the other hand, there are problems with the extension of these definitions to bases that are
not positive real numbers. For example, a negative real number has a real nth root, which is
negative, if n is odd, and no real root if n is even. In the latter case, whichever complex nth root

one chooses for the identity cannot be satisfied. For example,

See § Real exponents and § Non-integer powers of complex numbers for details on the way
these problems may be handled.

Real exponents

[edit]

For positive real numbers, exponentiation to real powers can be defined in two equivalent ways,
either by extending the rational powers to reals by continuity (§ Limits of rational exponents,
below), or in terms of the logarithm of the base and the exponential function (§ Powers via
logarithms, below). The result is always a positive real number, and the identities and
properties shown above for integer exponents remain true with these definitions for real
exponents. The second definition is more commonly used, since it generalizes straightforwardly
to complex exponents.

On the other hand, exponentiation to a real power of a negative real number is much more
difficult to define consistently, as it may be non-real and have several values. One may choose
one of these values, called the principal value, but there is no choice of the principal value for
which the identity

is true; see § Failure of power and logarithm identities. Therefore, exponentiation with a basis
that is not a positive real number is generally viewed as a multivalued function.

Limits of rational exponents

[edit]

The limit of e1/n is e0 = 1 when n tends to the infinity.

Since any irrational number can be expressed as the limit of a sequence of rational numbers,
exponentiation of a positive real number b with an arbitrary real exponent x can be defined
by continuity with the rule[32]

where the limit is taken over rational values of r only. This limit exists for every positive b and
every real x.

For example, if x = π, the non-terminating decimal representation π = 3.14159... and

the monotonicity of the rational powers can be used to obtain intervals bounded by rational

powers that are as small as desired, and must contain

So, the upper bounds and the lower bounds of the intervals form two sequences that have the

same limit, denoted

This defines for every positive b and real x as a continuous function of b and x. See
also Well-defined expression.[33]

Exponential function

[edit]

Main article: Exponential function

The exponential function may be defined as where is Euler's number, but to

avoid circular reasoning, this definition cannot be used here. Rather, we give an independent

definition of the exponential function and of , relying only on positive integer powers
(repeated multiplication). Then we sketch the proof that this agrees with the previous

definition:

There are many equivalent ways to define the exponential function, one of them being

One has and the exponential identity (or multiplication rule) holds as well, since

and the second-order term does not affect the limit, yielding .
Euler's number can be defined as . It follows from the preceding equations

that when x is an integer (this results from the repeated-multiplication definition of the

exponentiation). If x is real, results from the definitions given in preceding sections, by

using the exponential identity if x is rational, and the continuity of the exponential function
otherwise.

The limit that defines the exponential function converges for every complex value of x, and

therefore it can be used to extend the definition of , and thus from the real numbers
to any complex argument z. This extended exponential function still satisfies the exponential
identity, and is commonly used for defining exponentiation for complex base and exponent.

Powers via logarithms

[edit]

The definition of ex as the exponential function allows defining bx for every positive real
numbers b, in terms of exponential and logarithm function. Specifically, the fact that the natural
logarithm ln(x) is the inverse of the exponential function ex means that one has

for every b > 0. For preserving the identity one must have

So, can be used as an alternative definition of bx for any positive real b. This agrees with
the definition given above using rational exponents and continuity, with the advantage to extend
straightforwardly to any complex exponent.

Complex exponents with a positive real base

[edit]

If b is a positive real number, exponentiation with base b and complex exponent z is defined by
means of the exponential function with complex argument (see the end of § Exponential
function, above) as

where denotes the natural logarithm of b.

This satisfies the identity

In general, is not defined, since bz is not a real number. If a meaning is given to the
exponentiation of a complex number (see § Non-integer powers of complex numbers, below),
one has, in general,

unless z is real or t is an integer.

Euler's formula,

allows expressing the polar form of in terms of the real and imaginary parts of z, namely

where the absolute value of the trigonometric factor is one. This results from

Non-integer exponents with a complex base

[edit]

In the preceding sections, exponentiation with non-integer exponents has been defined for
positive real bases only. For other bases, difficulties appear already with the apparently simple

case of nth roots, that is, of exponents where n is a positive integer. Although the general
theory of exponentiation with non-integer exponents applies to nth roots, this case deserves to
be considered first, since it does not need to use complex logarithms, and is therefore easier to
understand.

nth roots of a complex number

[edit]

Every nonzero complex number z may be written in polar form as

where is the absolute value of z, and is its argument. The argument is defined up

to an integer multiple of 2π; this means that, if is the argument of a complex number,

then is also an argument of the same complex number for every integer .

The polar form of the product of two complex numbers is obtained by multiplying the absolute
values and adding the arguments. It follows that the polar form of an nth root of a complex
number can be obtained by taking the nth root of the absolute value and dividing its argument
by n:

If is added to , the complex number is not changed, but this adds to the
argument of the nth root, and provides a new nth root. This can be done n times, and provides
the n nth roots of the complex number.

It is usual to choose one of the n nth root as the principal root. The common choice is to choose

the nth root for which that is, the nth root that has the largest real part, and, if there are
two, the one with positive imaginary part. This makes the principal nth root a continuous
function in the whole complex plane, except for negative real values of the radicand. This
function equals the usual nth root for positive real radicands. For negative real radicands, and
odd exponents, the principal nth root is not real, although the usual nth root is real. Analytic
continuation shows that the principal nth root is the unique complex differentiable function that
extends the usual nth root to the complex plane without the nonpositive real numbers.

If the complex number is moved around zero by increasing its argument, after an increment

of the complex number comes back to its initial position, and its nth roots are permuted

circularly (they are multiplied by ). This shows that it is not possible to define a nth root
function that is continuous in the whole complex plane.

Roots of unity

[edit]

Main article: Root of unity

The three third roots of 1

The nth roots of unity are the n complex numbers such that wn = 1, where n is a positive integer.
They arise in various areas of mathematics, such as in discrete Fourier transform or algebraic
solutions of algebraic equations (Lagrange resolvent).
The n nth roots of unity are the n first powers of , that is The nth roots of unity that
have this generating property are called primitive nth roots of unity; they have the

form with k coprime with n. The unique primitive square root of unity is the primitive

fourth roots of unity are and

The nth roots of unity allow expressing all nth roots of a complex number z as the n products of a
given nth roots of z with a nth root of unity.

Geometrically, the nth roots of unity lie on the unit circle of the complex plane at the vertices of
a regular n-gon with one vertex on the real number 1.

As the number is the primitive nth root of unity with the smallest positive argument, it is
called the principal primitive nth root of unity, sometimes shortened as principal nth root of

unity, although this terminology can be confused with the principal value of , which is
1.[34][35][36]

Complex exponentiation

[edit]

Defining exponentiation with complex bases leads to difficulties that are similar to those
described in the preceding section, except that there are, in general, infinitely many possible

values for . So, either a principal value is defined, which is not continuous for the values

of z that are real and nonpositive, or is defined as a multivalued function.

In all cases, the complex logarithm is used to define complex exponentiation as

where is the variant of the complex logarithm that is used, which is a function or
a multivalued function such that

for every z in its domain of definition.

Principal value

[edit]

The principal value of the complex logarithm is the unique continuous function, commonly

denoted such that, for every nonzero complex number z,

and the argument of z satisfies

The principal value of the complex logarithm is not defined for it is discontinuous at
negative real values of z, and it is holomorphic (that is, complex differentiable) elsewhere. If z is

real and positive, the principal value of the complex logarithm is the natural logarithm:

The principal value of is defined as where is the principal value of the

logarithm.

The function is holomorphic except in the neighbourhood of the points where z is real and
nonpositive.

If z is real and positive, the principal value of equals its usual value defined above.

If where n is an integer, this principal value is the same as the one defined above.

Multivalued function

[edit]

In some contexts, there is a problem with the discontinuity of the principal values

of and at the negative real values of z. In this case, it is useful to consider these
functions as multivalued functions.

If denotes one of the values of the multivalued logarithm (typically its principal value), the

other values are where k is any integer. Similarly, if is one value of the exponentiation,
then the other values are given by

where k is any integer.

Different values of k give different values of unless w is a rational number, that is, there is
an integer d such that dw is an integer. This results from the periodicity of the exponential

function, more specifically, that if and only if is an integer multiple of

If is a rational number with m and n coprime integers with then has

exactly n values. In the case these values are the same as those described in § nth roots of
a complex number. If w is an integer, there is only one value that agrees with that of § Integer
exponents.

The multivalued exponentiation is holomorphic for in the sense that its graph consists of
several sheets that define each a holomorphic function in the neighborhood of every point.

If z varies continuously along a circle around 0, then, after a turn, the value of has changed
of sheet.

Computation

[edit]

The canonical form of can be computed from the canonical form of z and w.
Although this can be described by a single formula, it is clearer to split the computation in
several steps.

• Polar form of z. If is the canonical form of z (a and b being real), then its polar form

is with and , where ⁠ ⁠ is the two-argument arctangent function.

• Logarithm of z. The principal value of this logarithm is where denotes

the natural logarithm. The other values of the logarithm are obtained by adding for
any integer k.

• Canonical form of If with c and d real, the values of are the

principal value corresponding to

• Final result. Using the identities and one gets with for the principal
value.

Examples

[edit]

The polar form of i is and the values of are thus It follows that So, all

values of are real, the principal one being

Similarly, the polar form of −2 is So, the above described method gives the values
 In this case, all the values have the same argument and different absolute
values.

In both examples, all values of have the same argument. More generally, this is true if and
only if the real part of w is an integer.

Failure of power and logarithm identities

[edit]

Some identities for powers and logarithms for positive real numbers will fail for complex
numbers, no matter how complex powers and complex logarithms are defined as single-valued
functions. For example:

• The identity log(bx) = x ⋅ log b holds whenever b is a positive real number and x is a real
number. But for the principal branch of the complex logarithm one has

Regardless of which branch of the logarithm is used, a similar failure of the identity will exist.

The best that can be said (if only using this result) is that:

This identity does not hold even when considering log as a multivalued function. The possible
values of log(wz) contain those of z ⋅ log w as a proper subset. Using Log(w) for the principal
value of log(w) and m, n as any integers the possible values of both sides are:

• The identities (bc)x = bxcx and (b/c)x = bx/cx are valid when b and c are positive real

numbers and x is a real number. But, for the principal values, one has and On
the other hand, when x is an integer, the identities are valid for all nonzero complex
numbers. If exponentiation is considered as a multivalued function then the possible
values of (−1 ⋅ −1)1/2 are {1, −1}. The identity holds, but saying {1} = {(−1 ⋅ −1)1/2} is
incorrect.

• The identity (ex)y = exy holds for real numbers x and y, but assuming its truth for complex
numbers leads to the following paradox, discovered in 1827 by Clausen:[37] For any
integer n, we have:

1.

2. (taking the -th power of both sides)

3. (using and expanding the exponent)

4. (using )
 5. (dividing by e)

but this is false when the integer n is nonzero. The error is the following: by definition, is a

notation for a true function, and is a notation for which is a multi-valued

function. Thus the notation is ambiguous when x = e. Here, before expanding the exponent, the

second line should be Therefore, when expanding the exponent, one has implicitly

supposed that for complex values of z, which is wrong, as the complex logarithm is

multivalued. In other words, the wrong identity (ex)y = exy must be replaced by the identity
which is a true identity between multivalued functions.

Irrationality and transcendence

[edit]

Main article: Gelfond–Schneider theorem

If b is a positive real algebraic number, and x is a rational number, then bx is an algebraic

number. This results from the theory of algebraic extensions. This remains true if b is any
algebraic number, in which case, all values of bx (as a multivalued function) are algebraic.
If x is irrational (that is, not rational), and both b and x are algebraic, Gelfond–Schneider theorem
asserts that all values of bx are transcendental (that is, not algebraic), except if b equals 0 or 1.

In other words, if x is irrational and then at least one of b, x and bx is transcendental.

Integer powers in algebra

[edit]

The definition of exponentiation with positive integer exponents as repeated multiplication may
apply to any associative operation denoted as a multiplication.[nb 2] The definition of x0 requires
further the existence of a multiplicative identity.[38]

An algebraic structure consisting of a set together with an associative operation denoted

multiplicatively, and a multiplicative identity denoted by 1 is a monoid. In such a monoid,
exponentiation of an element x is defined inductively by

• for every nonnegative integer n.

If n is a negative integer, is defined only if x has a multiplicative inverse.[39] In this case, the

inverse of x is denoted x−1, and xn is defined as

Exponentiation with integer exponents obeys the following laws, for x and y in the algebraic
structure, and m and n integers:

These definitions are widely used in many areas of mathematics, notably

for groups, rings, fields, square matrices (which form a ring). They apply also to functions from
a set to itself, which form a monoid under function composition. This includes, as specific
instances, geometric transformations, and endomorphisms of any mathematical structure.

When there are several operations that may be repeated, it is common to indicate the repeated
operation by placing its symbol in the superscript, before the exponent. For example, if f is a real

function whose valued can be multiplied, denotes the exponentiation with respect of

multiplication, and may denote exponentiation with respect of function composition. That
is,

and

Commonly, is denoted while is denoted

In a group

[edit]

A multiplicative group is a set with as associative operation denoted as multiplication, that has
an identity element, and such that every element has an inverse.

So, if G is a group, is defined for every and every integer n.

The set of all powers of an element of a group form a subgroup. A group (or subgroup) that
consists of all powers of a specific element x is the cyclic group generated by x. If all the powers

of x are distinct, the group is isomorphic to the additive group of the integers. Otherwise,
the cyclic group is finite (it has a finite number of elements), and its number of elements is

the order of x. If the order of x is n, then and the cyclic group generated by x consists of
the n first powers of x (starting indifferently from the exponent 0 or 1).

Order of elements play a fundamental role in group theory. For example, the order of an element
in a finite group is always a divisor of the number of elements of the group (the order of the
group). The possible orders of group elements are important in the study of the structure of a
group (see Sylow theorems), and in the classification of finite simple groups.
Superscript notation is also used for conjugation; that is, gh = h−1gh, where g and h are elements
of a group. This notation cannot be confused with exponentiation, since the superscript is not
an integer. The motivation of this notation is that conjugation obeys some of the laws of

exponentiation, namely and

In a ring

[edit]

In a ring, it may occur that some nonzero elements satisfy for some integer n. Such an
element is said to be nilpotent. In a commutative ring, the nilpotent elements form an ideal,
called the nilradical of the ring.

If the nilradical is reduced to the zero ideal (that is, if implies for every positive
integer n), the commutative ring is said to be reduced. Reduced rings are important in algebraic
geometry, since the coordinate ring of an affine algebraic set is always a reduced ring.

More generally, given an ideal I in a commutative ring R, the set of the elements of R that have a
power in I is an ideal, called the radical of I. The nilradical is the radical of the zero ideal.

A radical ideal is an ideal that equals its own radical. In a polynomial ring over a field k, an
ideal is radical if and only if it is the set of all polynomials that are zero on an affine algebraic set
(this is a consequence of Hilbert's Nullstellensatz).

Matrices and linear operators

[edit]

If A is a square matrix, then the product of A with itself n times is called the matrix power.

Also is defined to be the identity matrix,[40] and if A is invertible, then .

Matrix powers appear often in the context of discrete dynamical systems, where the
matrix A expresses a transition from a state vector x of some system to the next state Ax of the

system.[41] This is the standard interpretation of a Markov chain, for example. Then is the

state of the system after two time steps, and so forth: is the state of the system

after n time steps. The matrix power is the transition matrix between the state now and the
state at a time n steps in the future. So computing matrix powers is equivalent to solving the
evolution of the dynamical system. In many cases, matrix powers can be expediently computed
by using eigenvalues and eigenvectors.

Apart from matrices, more general linear operators can also be exponentiated. An example is

the derivative operator of calculus, , which is a linear operator acting on functions to

give a new function . The nth power of the differentiation operator is the nth derivative:
These examples are for discrete exponents of linear operators, but in many circumstances it is
also desirable to define powers of such operators with continuous exponents. This is the
starting point of the mathematical theory of semigroups.[42] Just as computing matrix powers
with discrete exponents solves discrete dynamical systems, so does computing matrix powers
with continuous exponents solve systems with continuous dynamics. Examples include
approaches to solving the heat equation, Schrödinger equation, wave equation, and other
partial differential equations including a time evolution. The special case of exponentiating the
derivative operator to a non-integer power is called the fractional derivative which, together with
the fractional integral, is one of the basic operations of the fractional calculus.

Finite fields

[edit]

Main article: Finite field

A field is an algebraic structure in which multiplication, addition, subtraction, and division are
defined and satisfy the properties that multiplication is associative and every nonzero element
has a multiplicative inverse. This implies that exponentiation with integer exponents is well-
defined, except for nonpositive powers of 0. Common examples are the field of complex
numbers, the real numbers and the rational numbers, considered earlier in this article, which
are all infinite.

A finite field is a field with a finite number of elements. This number of elements is either a prime

number or a prime power; that is, it has the form where p is a prime number, and k is a
positive integer. For every such q, there are fields with q elements. The fields with q elements
are all isomorphic, which allows, in general, working as if there were only one field

with q elements, denoted

One has

for every

A primitive element in is an element g such that the set of the q − 1 first powers of g (that

is, ) equals the set of the nonzero elements of There are primitive elements

in where is Euler's totient function.

In the freshman's dream identity

is true for the exponent p. As in It follows that the map

is linear over and is a field automorphism, called the Frobenius automorphism. If the

field has k automorphisms, which are the k first powers (under composition) of F. In other

words, the Galois group of is cyclic of order k, generated by the Frobenius automorphism.

The Diffie–Hellman key exchange is an application of exponentiation in finite fields that is widely
used for secure communications. It uses the fact that exponentiation is computationally
inexpensive, whereas the inverse operation, the discrete logarithm, is computationally

expensive. More precisely, if g is a primitive element in then can be efficiently

computed with exponentiation by squaring for any e, even if q is large, while there is no known

computationally practical algorithm that allows retrieving e from if q is sufficiently large.

Powers of sets

[edit]

The Cartesian product of two sets S and T is the set of the ordered pairs such

that and This operation is not properly commutative nor associative, but has these
properties up to canonical isomorphisms, that allow identifying, for

example, and

This allows defining the nth power of a set S as the set of all n-tuples of elements
of S.

When S is endowed with some structure, it is frequent that is naturally endowed with a
similar structure. In this case, the term "direct product" is generally used instead of "Cartesian
product", and exponentiation denotes product structure. For

example (where denotes the real numbers) denotes the Cartesian product

of n copies of as well as their direct product as vector space, topological spaces, rings,
etc.

Sets as exponents

[edit]

See also: Function (mathematics) § Set exponentiation

A n-tuple of elements of S can be considered as a function from This generalizes to
the following notation.

Given two sets S and T, the set of all functions from T to S is denoted . This exponential
notation is justified by the following canonical isomorphisms (for the first one, see Currying):

where denotes the Cartesian product, and the disjoint union.

One can use sets as exponents for other operations on sets, typically for direct sums of abelian
groups, vector spaces, or modules. For distinguishing direct sums from direct products, the

exponent of a direct sum is placed between parentheses. For example, denotes the vector

space of the infinite sequences of real numbers, and the vector space of those sequences
that have a finite number of nonzero elements. The latter has a basis consisting of the
sequences with exactly one nonzero element that equals 1, while the Hamel bases of the
former cannot be explicitly described (because their existence involves Zorn's lemma).

In this context, 2 can represents the set So, denotes the power set of S, that is the set

of the functions from S to which can be identified with the set of the subsets of S, by
mapping each function to the inverse image of 1.

This fits in with the exponentiation of cardinal numbers, in the sense that |ST| = |S||T|, where |X| is
the cardinality of X.

In category theory

[edit]

Main article: Cartesian closed category

In the category of sets, the morphisms between sets X and Y are the functions from X to Y. It

results that the set of the functions from X to Y that is denoted in the preceding section

can also be denoted The isomorphism can be rewritten

This means the functor "exponentiation to the power T " is a right adjoint to the functor "direct
product with T ".
This generalizes to the definition of exponentiation in a category in which finite direct

products exist: in such a category, the functor is, if it exists, a right adjoint to the

functor A category is called a Cartesian closed category, if direct products exist, and the

functor has a right adjoint for every T.

Repeated exponentiation

[edit]

Main articles: Tetration and Hyperoperation

Just as exponentiation of natural numbers is motivated by repeated multiplication, it is possible

to define an operation based on repeated exponentiation; this operation is sometimes called
hyper-4 or tetration. Iterating tetration leads to another operation, and so on, a concept
named hyperoperation. This sequence of operations is expressed by the Ackermann
function and Knuth's up-arrow notation. Just as exponentiation grows faster than multiplication,
which is faster-growing than addition, tetration is faster-growing than exponentiation. Evaluated
at (3, 3), the functions addition, multiplication, exponentiation, and tetration yield 6, 9, 27,
and 7625597484987 (=327 = 333 = 33) respectively.

Limits of powers

[edit]

Zero to the power of zero gives a number of examples of limits that are of the indeterminate
form 00. The limits in these examples exist, but have different values, showing that the two-
variable function xy has no limit at the point (0, 0). One may consider at what points this function
does have a limit.

More precisely, consider the function defined on . Then D can be viewed as a subset
of R2 (that is, the set of all pairs (x, y) with x, y belonging to the extended real number line R =
[−∞, +∞], endowed with the product topology), which will contain the points at which the
function f has a limit.

In fact, f has a limit at all accumulation points of D, except for (0, 0), (+∞, 0), (1, +∞) and (1,
−∞).[43] Accordingly, this allows one to define the powers xy by continuity whenever 0 ≤ x ≤ +∞, −∞
≤ y ≤ +∞, except for 00, (+∞)0, 1+∞ and 1−∞, which remain indeterminate forms.

Under this definition by continuity, we obtain:

• x+∞ = +∞ and x−∞ = 0, when 1 < x ≤ +∞.

• x+∞ = 0 and x−∞ = +∞, when 0 ≤ x < 1.

• 0y = 0 and (+∞)y = +∞, when 0 < y ≤ +∞.

• 0y = +∞ and (+∞)y = 0, when −∞ ≤ y < 0.

These powers are obtained by taking limits of xy for positive values of x. This method does not
permit a definition of xy when x < 0, since pairs (x, y) with x < 0 are not accumulation points of D.
On the other hand, when n is an integer, the power xn is already meaningful for all values of x,
including negative ones. This may make the definition 0n = +∞ obtained above for
negative n problematic when n is odd, since in this case xn → +∞ as x tends to 0 through positive
values, but not negative ones.

Efficient computation with integer exponents

[edit]

Computing bn using iterated multiplication requires n − 1 multiplication operations, but it can be

computed more efficiently than that, as illustrated by the following example. To compute 2100,
apply Horner's rule to the exponent 100 written in binary:

Then compute the following terms in order, reading Horner's rule from right to left.

This series of steps only requires 8 multiplications instead of 99.

In general, the number of multiplication operations required to compute bn can be reduced

to by using exponentiation by squaring, where denotes the number of 1s in the binary

representation of n. For some exponents (100 is not among them), the number of
multiplications can be further reduced by computing and using the minimal addition-chain
exponentiation. Finding the minimal sequence of multiplications (the minimal-length addition
chain for the exponent) for bn is a difficult problem, for which no efficient algorithms are
currently known (see Subset sum problem), but many reasonably efficient heuristic algorithms
are available.[44] However, in practical computations, exponentiation by squaring is efficient
enough, and much more easy to implement.

Iterated functions

[edit]

See also: Iterated function

Function composition is a binary operation that is defined on functions such that
the codomain of the function written on the right is included in the domain of the function

written on the left. It is denoted and defined as

for every x in the domain of f.

If the domain of a function f equals its codomain, one may compose the function with itself an
arbitrary number of time, and this defines the nth power of the function under composition,

commonly called the nth iterate of the function. Thus denotes generally the nth iterate of f;

for example, means [45]

When a multiplication is defined on the codomain of the function, this defines a multiplication
on functions, the pointwise multiplication, which induces another exponentiation. When
using functional notation, the two kinds of exponentiation are generally distinguished by placing
the exponent of the functional iteration before the parentheses enclosing the arguments of the
function, and placing the exponent of pointwise multiplication after the parentheses.

Thus and When functional notation is not used, disambiguation is often done by

placing the composition symbol before the exponent; for example and For historical
reasons, the exponent of a repeated multiplication is placed before the argument for some

specific functions, typically the trigonometric functions. So, and both

mean and not which, in any case, is rarely considered. Historically, several variants
of these notations were used by different authors.[46][47][48]

In this context, the exponent denotes always the inverse function, if it exists. So For

the multiplicative inverse fractions are generally used as in

In programming languages

[edit]

Programming languages generally express exponentiation either as an infix operator or as a

function application, as they do not support superscripts. The most common operator symbol
for exponentiation is the caret (^). The original version of ASCII included an uparrow symbol (↑),
intended for exponentiation, but this was replaced by the caret in 1967, so the caret became
usual in programming languages.[49] The notations include:

• x ^ y: AWK, BASIC, J, MATLAB, Wolfram Language (Mathematica), R, Microsoft

Excel, Analytica, TeX (and its derivatives), TI-BASIC, bc (for integer
exponents), Haskell (for nonnegative integer exponents), Lua, and most computer
algebra systems.
 • x ** y. The Fortran character set did not include lowercase characters or punctuation
symbols other than +-*/()&=.,' and so used ** for exponentiation[50][51] (the initial version
used a xx b instead.[52]). Many other languages followed suit: Ada, Z
shell, KornShell, Bash, COBOL, CoffeeScript, Fortran, FoxPro, Gnuplot, Groovy, JavaScri
pt, OCaml, ooRexx, F#, Perl, PHP, PL/I, Python, Rexx, Ruby, SAS, Seed7, Tcl, ABAP, Mercu
ry, Haskell (for floating-point exponents), Turing, and VHDL.

• x ↑ y: Algol Reference language, Commodore BASIC, TRS-80 Level II/III BASIC.[53][54]

• x ^^ y: Haskell (for fractional base, integer exponents), D.

• x⋆y: APL.

In most programming languages with an infix exponentiation operator, it is right-associative, that

is, a^b^c is interpreted as a^(b^c).[55] This is because (a^b)^c is equal to a^(b*c) and thus not as
useful. In some languages, it is left-associative, notably in Algol, MATLAB, and the Microsoft
Excel formula language.

Other programming languages use functional notation:

• (expt x y): Common Lisp.

• pown x y: F# (for integer base, integer exponent).

Still others only provide exponentiation as part of standard libraries:

• pow(x, y): C, C++ (in math library).

• Math.Pow(x, y): C#.

• math:pow(X, Y): Erlang.

• Math.pow(x, y): Java.

• [Math]::Pow(x, y): PowerShell.

In some statically typed languages that prioritize type safety such as Rust, exponentiation is
performed via a multitude of methods:

• x.pow(y) for x and y as integers

• x.powf(y) for x and y as floating point numbers

• x.powi(y) for x as a float and y as an integer

See also

[edit]

• Mathematics portal

• Double exponential function

• Exponential decay

• Exponential field

• Exponential growth
 • Hyperoperation

• Tetration

• Pentation

• List of exponential topics

• Modular exponentiation

• Scientific notation

• Unicode subscripts and superscripts

• xy = yx

• Zero to the power of zero

Notes

[edit]

1. ^ There are three common notations for multiplication: is most commonly

used for explicit numbers and at a very elementary level; is most common

when variables are used; is used for emphasizing that one talks of
multiplication or when omitting the multiplication sign would be confusing.

2. ^ More generally, power associativity is sufficient for the definition.

References

[edit]

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