Tetration

Tetration is a fancy math word which basically means repeatedly multiplying numbers by themselves. It is a bit like the exponentials you learn in school, but instead of just multiplying once or twice, you keep multiplying and multiplying the same number over and over again.

Here's an example: Let's say you start with the number 2.

To square it, you would multiply it by itself: 2 x 2 = 4.

To cube it, you would multiply it by itself three times: 2 x 2 x 2 = 8.

Now here's where tetration comes in. To tetrat it, you would multiply it by itself four times: 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16.

You can keep going with this, too. To pentrat it, you would multiply it by itself five times: 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 32.

As you keep tetrating higher and higher, the numbers get really large really quickly. In fact, for big numbers, tetration is way bigger than exponential growth.

It might not seem super useful in day-to-day life, but tetration is an important mathematical concept that comes up in lots of other areas like computer algorithms, quantum mechanics, and cryptography!