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:
Exponential function
where is a positive real number, and in which the argument occurs as an exponent. For real numbers and a function of the form formula_1 is also an exponential function, as it can be rewritten as