Exponentiation
When it is a positive integer, the exponent indicates how many copies of the base are multiplied together. For example, . The base appears times in the repeated multiplication, because the exponent is . Here, is the "base", is the "exponent", and is the "power" or, more specifically, "3 raised to the 5th power".
Exponentiation
The term "power" was used by the Greek mathematician Euclid for the square of a line. Archimedes discovered and proved the law of exponents, , necessary to manipulate powers of . In the 9th century, the Persian mathematician Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī used the terms "mal" for a square and "kahb" for a cube, which later Islamic mathematicians represented in mathematical notation as "m" and "k", respectively, by the 15th century, as seen in the work of Abū al-Hasan ibn Alī al-Qalasādī.