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
The exponential function is defined for all integer, fractional, real, and complex values of "x". In fact, the matrix exponential is well-defined for square matrices (in which case this exponential identity only holds when "x" and "y" commute), and is useful for solving systems of linear differential equations.