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What's the way to write or to read power (math) it in words?

Does "powered by" is correct?

For example: "2 powered by 5 divided by 2 powered by 3." works?

Also "What 4 powered by 3 does equal to?" is correct?

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Jasper
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Virtuous Legend
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1 Answers1

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It is usual to say

"2 raised to the power 5"

or more concisely

"2 to the power 5"

"2 to the power of 5" is also acceptable, but not "2 powered by 5".

Amongst mathematicians "2 to the 5" is shorthand, "power of" being understood.
So you should say

"2 to the power 5 divided by 2 to the power 3"

and

"What is 4 to the power 3 equal to?"

Virtuous Legend
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Peter Jennings
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    it may be worth pointing out whether "two to the 5" is spoken as "two to the five" or "two to the fifth". some languages, german is an example, do use the ordinal instead of the cardinal here. – dlatikay Jun 23 '19 at 23:54
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    It might also be worth pointing out that "squared" and "cubed" are commonly used for exponents of 2 and 3 respectively. – BenM Jun 24 '19 at 00:52
  • @dlatikay Maybe in German, but English mathematicians would interpret two to the fifth as 2 raised to the power one fifth (1/5) which is the fifth root of 2. something completely different. – Peter Jennings Jun 24 '19 at 01:29
  • @PeterJennings However, it's pretty common (at least in AmE) to use xto the nth power' instead of 'x raised to the power of n'. – Austin Hemmelgarn Jun 24 '19 at 02:05
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    I'll disagree with Peter Jennings on this- $2^{5}$ would commonly be read in English as "two to the fifth" or "two to the fifth power." You would read $2^{(1/5}}$ as "two to the one fifth" – Brian Borchers Jun 24 '19 at 04:03
  • @BrianBorchers On second thoughts you are correct, I was wrong. "two to the fifth" and "two to the power five" are both 2^5. "two to the one fifth" is 2^(1/5) – Peter Jennings Sep 27 '19 at 22:45