Square Numbers and Exponents in Python, With Examples

This tutorial will show you how to use exponents (e.g., calculating the square root of a number) in Python, with some code examples.

This tutorial covers several ways to calculate exponents in Python 3.

Using ** (Power Operator)

The ** mathematical operator (known as the power operator) will calculate an exponent, raising the number on the left to the power of the number on the right of the operator:

4**5 # Will evaluate 4*4*4*4*4 and return the integer value 1024

Note that:

• You will receive a ZeroDivisionError if you try to raise 0 (zero) to a negative power
• Raising a negative number to a fractional power will result in a complex number
• If floating-point (non-integer) numbers are supplied, the result will be a floating-point number

Using pow(x, y)

The built-in pow() function will do the same – the result will be identical – it just uses a function to calculate the result rather than a mathematical operator:

pow(4, 5) # Will also return 1024, the same as above

Note that:

• Everything that applies to the ** operator applies to the pow() function

Using math.pow()

The math library also includes a pow() function which does the same thing – but with slightly different behavior and results:

import math
math.pow(4, 5) # Returns 1024 - but as a floating point number, not an integer

Note that:

• While the number returned is the same as the ** operator and the built-in pow() function, the number type is different. math.pow() converts the numbers passed to it to floating-point numbers – and always returns its answer as a floating-point number
• Both math.pow(1.0, num) and math.pow(num, 0.0) always return 1.0 when using math.pow()
  • This occurs even when num is zero or NaN (Not a Number)
• math.pow() throws a ValueError exception when:
  • The first argument is negative
  • The second argument is not an integer

Square Numbers

‘Squaring’ a number is simply raising it to a power (exponent) of 2.

So, 5 squared would be calculated as follows using the above methods:

5**2
pow(5, 2)
math.pow(5, 2)

All of the above will return the number 25.