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In mathematics, exponentiation, denoted b n, 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, b n is the product of multiplying n bases: [1] = ⏟.
When exponents were introduced in the 16th and 17th centuries, they were given precedence over both addition and multiplication and placed as a superscript to the right of their base. [2] Thus 3 + 5 2 = 28 and 3 × 5 2 = 75. These conventions exist to avoid notational ambiguity while allowing notation to remain brief. [4]
In mathematics and computer science, optimal addition-chain exponentiation is a method of exponentiation by a positive integer power that requires a minimal number of multiplications. Using the form of the shortest addition chain, with multiplication instead of addition, computes the desired exponent (instead of multiple) of the base.
Logarithms and exponentials with the same base cancel each other. This is true because logarithms and exponentials are inverse operations—much like the same way multiplication and division are inverse operations, and addition and subtraction are inverse operations.
where s is the significand (ignoring any implied decimal point), p is the precision (the number of digits in the significand), b is the base (in our example, this is the number ten), and e is the exponent. Historically, several number bases have been used for representing floating-point numbers, with base two being the most common, followed by ...
Exponentiation by squaring can be viewed as a suboptimal addition-chain exponentiation algorithm: it computes the exponent by an addition chain consisting of repeated exponent doublings (squarings) and/or incrementing exponents by one (multiplying by x) only.
The definition of exponentiation can also be given by transfinite recursion on the exponent β. When the exponent β = 0, ordinary exponentiation gives α 0 = 1 for any α. For β > 0, the value of α β is the smallest ordinal greater than or equal to α δ · α for all δ < β. Writing the successor and limit ordinals cases separately: α 0 = 1.
The elementary functions are constructed by composing arithmetic operations, the exponential function (), the natural logarithm (), trigonometric functions (,), and their inverses. The complexity of an elementary function is equivalent to that of its inverse, since all elementary functions are analytic and hence invertible by means of Newton's ...