What does powers key mean in math terms?

Answer 1

Power (in math terms) means that you take the whole number, and whatever power its given, is how many times you multiply that number by itself.

Example: 5 to the 6th power.

You would take 5 (whole number) and times that by itself 6 (power) times.

5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5.

Answer 2

It means multiply the number by itself that many times. For instance, if you enter [5], [power key], [3], that means multiply 5 by itself 3 times: 5x5x5 = 25x5 = 125.

It gets a little weird when you go something like 16 to the power of 1.25 = 32, or 100 to the power of (1/3) = 4.64..., but you probably won't do that 'til next year!