What does ** mean?

Question

I noticed this code in open zepplins contract:

  uint256 public constant INITIAL_SUPPLY = 10000 * (10 ** uint256(decimals));

I've never seen the double ** before. What does it mean?

Answer 1

from the solidity documentation :

Arithmetic operators: +, -, unary -, unary +, *, /, % (remainder), ** (exponentiation)

so : a**b is a to the power of b (i.e: a*a*a*...*a b times)

Answer 2

** is ^. 2 ** 3 equals 8( ´ ▽ ` )

Answer 3

This operator is used for exponentiation.