Does ^ mean "greater than" in math? What does * mean?

Question

I must be way behind in math and need to bone up.

Answer 1

As a general rule, when working on a computer, we tend to not have good ways of expressing certain operations.

We generally do NOT want to use x for multiplication on a computer since it may get confused with the variable x. So we would like to use a dot, but we dont have that either - the * takes the place of multiplication for those reasons.

Also, exponentiation has no good way to be described either. So we often use the carat or ^ to represent exponents ie 2^3 = 8 and 3^2 = 9.

In paper mathematics, ^ is used sometimes for max and min especially in Real Analysis and courses beyond that. But via computers it almost always (99.999999%) of the time means exponentiation.

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

It means "to the power"
Examples
2^3 = 2³ = 2 x 2 x 2 = 8
5^2 = 5² = 5 x 5 = 25
3^4 = 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 = 81

Answer 3

> means "greater than".

^ indicates an exponent. x^2 = x²
* is the math operator for multiplication. It's used in computers because keyboards don't have an easy way to type ∙, the usual symbol for multiplication.

Answer 4

^ is exponentiation and * is multiplication

for example, 2^3 means "two cubed" = 2 * 2 * 2 = 8

the greater than sign is >
for example 9 > 6

Answer 5

< less than
> greater than
^ exponent
* times (Multiplication
+ Addition
- Subtraction
/ Division
^(1/2) square root and so on .....

Answer 6

when you see ^ on a computer it is a way to denote exponents with out superscripts. so x^2 is read x squared or x^3 is read x cubed.

Answer 7

He he he. No. It means "raised to the nth power" where "n" can be any number of variable.