How to write Superexponents
If you nest several super/subscripts, you should disambiguate the writing since it is not clear (for LaTeX) if you want to write (2^2)^65533
or 2^(2^65533)
.
You should therefor use curly brackets around the argument of the power function for having an unequivocal notation.
In your case, you should write $2^{2^{65533}}$
(note that $2^{2^65533}$
is also ok, since it is already unequivocal)
The right use of the exponent function is ^{<argument>}
(e.g. $e^{i\pi}$
).
However, if your argument is one character-long only, you can use the shorthand ^<argument>
(i.e. without curly brackets, e.g. $2^4$
). Thus, you cannot write $2^{2^65533}$
, even if it's mathematically unequivocal.
The LaTeX manual always shows the syntax
<base>^{<exponent>}
You should type
10^{2} e^{x} e^{-x^2} \sum_{k=0}^{\infty}\frac{x^{n}}{n!}
If you always do like this, your input would be
2^{2^{65533}}
If you type 2^3^4
, you get the double exponent
error message, because the input is ambiguous. Other software might accept it, usually interpreting it as if it were 2^81
, but TeX is a typesetting system, so it wants you to be clear about your intentions.
Most importantly, 2^81
would be ambiguous as well, again because TeX is a typesetting system and cannot distinguish 2^8x
and 2^8 x
.
CAS software might be able to interpret 2^8x
as “x multiplied by 256”, TeX does not interpret anything because it doesn't do math.
If you want “2 to the exponent 8x”, type 2^{8x}
; if you want “256 times x”, type 2^{8}x
.