Tetration

Tetration, also known as hyper4, superpower, superdegree or powerlog, is a binary mathematical operator defined as \(^yx = x^{x^{x^{.^{.^.}}}}\) with \(y\) copies of \(x\). In other words, tetration is repeated exponentiation. Formally, this is

\[^0x = 1\]

\[^{n + 1}x = x^{^nx}\]

where \(n\) is a nonnegative integer.

Daniel Geisler has created a website, tetration.org, dedicated to the operator and its properties.

Basis
Multiplication is defined as repeated addition:


 * \[x \times y = \underbrace{x + x + \ldots + x + x}_y\]

Exponentiation is defined as repeated multiplication:


 * \[x^y = \underbrace{x \times x \times \ldots \times x \times x}_y\]

Analogously, tetration is defined as repeated exponentiation:


 * \[^yx = \underbrace{x^{x^{x^{.^{.^.}}}}}_y\]

\(^yx\) is pronounced "to-the-\(y\) \(x\)" or "\(x\) tetrated to \(y\)." The notation is due to Rudy Rucker; another popular notation is \(x^④y\). \(^yx\) is equivalent to \(x \uparrow\uparrow y\) in Arrow Notation or \(\{x,y,2\}\) in BEAF.

But since exponentiation is not an associative operator (that is, \(a^{b^c}\) is generally not equal to \(\left(a^b\right)^c = a^{bc}\)), we can also group the exponentiation from bottom to top, producing what Robert Munafo calls the hyper4 operator, written \(x_④y\). \(x_④y\) reduces to \(x^{x^{y - 1}}\), which is not as mathematically interesting as the usual tetration.

Properties
Here is a complete recursive definition:

Expansion
Mathematicians have not agreed on the function's behavior on \(^yx\) where y is not an integer.

One function of note is infinite tetration, defined as \[^\infty x = \lim_{n\rightarrow\infty}{}^nx\]

If we mark the points on the complex plane at which \(^\infty x\) becomes periodic (as opposed to escaping to infinity), we get an interesting fractal. Daniel Geisler studied this shape extensively, giving names to identifiable features.

Examples
Here are some small examples of tetration in action:


 * \(^22 = 2^2 = 4\)
 * \(^32 = 2^{2^2} = 2^4 = 16\)
 * \(^23 = 3^3 = 27\)
 * \(^33 = 3^{3^3} = 3^{27} = 7625597484987\)
 * \(^42 = 2^{2^{2^2}} = 2^{2^4} = 2^{16} = 65536\)
 * \(^2{-2} = (-2)^{(-2)} = \frac{1}{(-2)^2} = \frac{1}{4}\)
 * \(^3{-2} = (-2)^{(-2)^{(-2)}} = (-2)^{1/4} = \frac{1 + i}{\sqrt[4]{2}}\)
 * \(^2(1/2) = (1/2)^{(1/2)} = \sqrt{1/2} = \frac{\sqrt2}{2}\)
 * \(^3(1/2) = (1/2)^{(1/2)^{(1/2)}} = (1/2)^{\sqrt{2}/2}\)

Here are some larger examples:


 * \(^35 = 5^{5^5} \approx 1.9110125979 \cdot 10^{2184}\)
 * \(^310 = 10^{10^{10}} = 10^{10000000000}\)
 * \(^43 \approx 10^{10^{10^{1.11}}}\)

Last digits convergence
If we have a power tower with n terms high, based on integer number, then it when solved has n-1 digits that occurs in the higher power towers at the same base. It is helpful allows you to find the last digits of Graham's number, tritri, supertet, and other large numbers which is the power tower with gigantic number of terms itself.

Pseudocode
Below is an example of pseudocode for tetration.

function tetration(a, b): result := 1 repeat b times: result := a to the power of result return result