Potenser

Potenser is a term used in some historical and fictional contexts to denote the mathematical operation of exponentiation, that is, raising a base to a power. In contemporary math, the operation is standardly written with the notation a^b, and the name potenser is rarely used outside older texts or specific fictional worlds. The word has linguistic roots related to potency or power, reflecting the idea of increasing a quantity by repeated multiplication.

In a typical definition within texts that employ the term, potenser is a binary operation that assigns to a base a and an exponent b the value Potenser(a, b), often written as a^b. The common-domain conventions vary by source: many early works assume a > 0 and b a nonnegative integer, while modern conventions extend to real or complex exponents with appropriate definitions. Core laws associated with the operation include Potenser(a, m+n) = Potenser(a, m) · Potenser(a, n) for integers m and n, and Potenser(a^m, n) = Potenser(a, m·n) when the exponents are compatible. Special cases such as a^0 = 1 for a ≠ 0 and 0^b = 0 for b > 0 are treated similarly to standard exponent rules; 0^0 is often left indeterminate.

Historically, the term appeared in some European mathematical glossaries and writings as a localized or antiquated name for exponentiation. Over time it was largely supplanted by the universal notation a^b in textbooks and research. Today, potenser is mainly encountered in discussions of mathematical history, in regional language variants, or in fiction and pedagogy to illustrate historical notation or to flavor a mathematical world-building setting. See also: Exponentiation, Power, Potency.