Why must the exponent be binary?

[jaunty cobalt]

<@&987246746478460948> please have a look, thanks.

[rich dirge]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_exponentiation#Right-to-left_binary_method

[vast lynx]

hmmmmm

what does the <- mean?

still kind of confused

if i raise a normal decimal base to a binary exponent it will be like this

say my base is 3

and my binary is 10

so in binary it is 1010

so id do 3^1010

which is way way wayyyyyyy off

[rich dirge]

<- here means assignment

[vast lynx]

why cant i just keep the exponent a decimal tho

the way i perform moduluar exponentiation on paper is i start the exponent at 1 and double it each row... and then add up the answers that have the exponents equal to what im looking for

[rich dirge]

The problem you posted doesn't say HOW you should do it. But it does allude to the using this technique when it says (so it needs to be converted to binary)

[vast lynx]

right

but i assume since it is saying to use the binary converter that, that is the best way to go

just isnt making much sense as to why

[rich dirge]

Maybe you need to just soak in it a bit. Start at the top of that article. Maybe google for some other resources now you know what technique your instructor expects.

[vast lynx]

!close

[jaunty cobalt]

Looks like you attempted to use a command? Please note that we only use slash-commands on this server 🙂

Try starting your message with a forward-slash / and Discord should open a popup showing you all available commands.
A command might then look like /foo 👍

Closed the thread.