What does power math mean?

Answer 1

It is another name for index. A positive integer power of a number represents the number of occurrences of a number which are multiplied together. For example, 5^3 = 5*5*5.

This definition gives rise to the power laws and these can be used to extend the definition of power to fractional and negative powers.

It is often wrongly described as the number of time a number is multiplied by itself but this count does not work. But the 5^3 should be 5 multiplied by 5 three times = 5*(5*5*5) which actually is 5^4.