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If the audience is IT/web folks, then "2^80" is the most clear
expression of the number. The "^" character is the standard notation
for exponent, i.e., if you do this at a shell prompt:
$ echo 2 80^p | dc
1208925819614629174706176
Since IT/web folks aren't math people, we never see "2^80" as "2 to the
80th power" but we read that as "80 bits." Using an actual
superscripted "80" would be confusing, as it would look more like a
numerical value, 2 to the 80th power, or approximately 1.2e24 (aka 1.2 *
10^24).
Just throwing my 2^1 cents out there :-) ...
On 10/13/14 1:49 PM, Chris Morton wrote:
> I've never seen this nomenclature before: 2^80
>
> Does this mean 2 to the 80th power?
>
> Is there a better way to express it, such as eliminating the carat and
> superscripting the 80?
>
> The target audience is IT folks running data centers and other web geeks. I
> don't think anyone can assume that each has a higher mathematics degree.
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