What do these symbols mean?

[veremchuka]

I've seen these many times (now in the include a pension in net worth thread) but I have no idea what they mean.

** and ^

Could you provide an example using real numbers?

Thanks.

 

[RunningBum]

Both are the exponent sign. 10**2 = 10x10 = 100. In the pension thread I had it as part of the equation for discounting future values, for example discounting 3 years at 4% as (1.04^3) which is 1.04 to the 3rd power or 1.04*1.04*1.04 or 1.124864.

 

[redduck]

And now you know.

 

[veremchuka]

Thank you!

 

[ziggy29]

The "**" sign as exponentiation should look familiar if we have any FORTRAN programmers out there...

 

[scrabbler1]

The ** symbol for exponentials is not limited to Fortran. I programmed in SAS for 23 years and that was how I indicated raising a number to a power.

 

[Janet H]

The asterisk may also be a replacement character inserted by the forum software in lieu of four letter words

 

[Rustward]

And the ** was used in lieu of the caret (^) in the olden days when the caret was not generally available. And just for a little nostalgia, there was a time when some character sets DID NOT HAVE LOWER CASE.