First you have counting 1, 2, 3, 4…
If you want to speed up counting, you can add.
Instead of counting from three to six, you can just add 3 + 3. Addition therefore is just repeated (iterated) counting.
But instead of adding 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3, you can just do 3 * 6 because multiplication is iterated addition.
But instead of multiplying 3 * 3 * 3 * 3, you can just do 3 ^ 4 because exponentiation is iterated multiplication.
That’s where most people leave off in their education, and they feel perfectly content to live their lives only because they don’t know what they’re missing.
Beyond exponentiation lies tetration, or iterated exponentiation…