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In mathematics, exponentiation (power) is an arithmetic operation on numbers. It can be thought of as repeated multiplication, just as multiplication can be thought of as repeated addition.

In general, given two numbers \displaystyle{ x } and \displaystyle{ y }, the exponentiation of \displaystyle{ x } and \displaystyle{ y } can be written as \displaystyle{ x^y }, and read as "\displaystyle{ x } raised to the power of \displaystyle{ y }", or "\displaystyle{ x } to the \displaystyle{ y }th power". Other methods of mathematical notation have been used in the past. When the upper index cannot be written, people can write powers using the ^ or ** signs, so that 2^4 or 2**4 means \displaystyle{ 2^4 }.