Pow

In exponentiation, one number is multiplied by itself. This is performed with the pow method, a built-in. With two stars, we can also take exponents.

In Python, two stars and pow are equivalent. So we can use whichever one seems clearest. I feel pow is clearer, but I rarely need exponents in programs.

First example

Here we use pow and the exponent operator. We see that 2 squared is 4 (because 2 times 2 is four). You should know this from math class.

# Two squared is four.
# ... These syntax forms are identical.
print(2 ** 2)
print(pow(2, 2))

# Two cubed is eight.
print(2 ** 3)
print(pow(2, 3))
4
4
8
8

3 arguments

Pow can be used with 3 arguments. The third argument is for modulo division. The result of the exponentiation operation is divided by that number. The remainder is returned.

# Compute 3 squared.
# ... This is 9.
# ... Perform 9 modulo 5 to get result of 4.
result = pow(3, 2, 5)
print(result)
4

A main goal of Python is syntax clarity. Python programs are easy to read and to write. With pow, we have a choice of syntax to use.

For developers who use many exponentiation operations, two stars might be clearer. But pow is often a less-common operation. For this reason it is probably a better choice overall.