How do you write an exponent of an exponent?

Question

I am trying to write 2 to the power of 2 to the power of k, and $2^2^k$ instead gives 2 to the power of 2k.

Try $2^{2^k}$ or ${2^2}^k$ or maybe even $({2^2})^k$ , depending on your context. — Steven B. Segletes, Jul 07 '20 at 18:29
See also Double Subscript for Subsequences. To adapt that posting to your use case, simply replace all instances of "subscript" with "superscript". — Mico, Jul 07 '20 at 19:16

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 07 '20 at 18:52

4

Just use the curly braces, grouping the exponents:

$2^{2^k}$

$m_{n_k}$

or even

$m_{n^2}$

A pair of curly braces creates a group - it means that TeX in many cases treats grouped part of the formula as one single object.

edited Jul 07 '20 at 18:52

TobiBS

answered Jul 07 '20 at 18:34

NickKolok

1 Answers1