Power of two | to the power of 2
TworaisedtoanintegerpowerVisualizationofpowersoftwofrom1to1024(20to210)Apoweroftwoisanumberoftheform2nwherenisaninteger,thatis,theresultofexponentiationwithnumbertwoasthebaseandinteger nastheexponent.Inacontextwhereonlyintegersareconsidered,nisrestrictedtonon-negativevalues,[1]sothereare1,2,and2multipliedbyitselfacertainnumberoftimes.[2]Thefirsttennon-negativepowersof2are:1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,...(sequenceA000079intheOEIS)Becausetwoisthebaseofthebinarynumeralsystem,powersoftwoarecommo...
Two raised to an integer power
Visualization of powers of two from 1 to 1024 (20 to 210)A power of two is a number of the form 2n where n is an integer, that is, the result of exponentiation with number two as the base and integer n as the exponent.
In a context where only integers are considered, n is restricted to non-negative values,[1] so there are 1, 2, and 2 multiplied by itself a certain number of times.[2]
The first ten non-negative powers of 2 are:
1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, ... (sequence A000079 in the OEIS)Because two is the base of the binary numeral system, powers of two are common in computer science. Written in binary, a power of two always has the form 100...000 or 0.00...001, just like a power of 10 in the decimal system.
Computer science[edit]Two to the power of n, written as 2n, is the number of ways the bits in a binary word of length n can be arranged. A word, interpreted as an unsigned integer, can represen...