Exponentiation Memes

The mathematical escalation here is beautiful. First panel: 10 5 = 100,000. Mildly impressed face. Second panel: 10 ⁵ written differently, same number. Slightly more excited. But that third panel... 10 5 is pentation - raising 10 to the power of itself 5 times. That's a number so incomprehensibly large it would make supercomputers weep. No wonder the guy's face turned into an eldritch horror. Mathematicians call this level of numerical insanity "power towers," and they're basically the math equivalent of saying "hold my coffee" to infinity.

The eternal question that keeps mathematicians up at night: if Σ represents summation and Π represents multiplication, what unholy symbol lurks in the darkness for exponentiation? Mathematicians have standardized notation for adding things up and multiplying sequences, but apparently drew the line at creating a dedicated symbol for "let's raise this to the power of that a bunch of times." Some grad student is probably frantically working on this right now, hoping to name it after themselves. "And here we apply the Johnson Exponentiation Operator..." Sure, buddy. Keep dreaming.