Exponentiation
Exponentiation is a mathematical operation, written as , involving two numbers, the "base" and the "exponent" . When is a positive integer, exponentiation corresponds to repeated multiplication of the base: that is, is the product of multiplying bases:
Exponentiation
If "z" is an integer, then the value of "w" is independent of the choice of , and it agrees with the earlier definition of exponentiation with an integer exponent.