Talk:Quintation

For a March 2005 deletion debate over this page see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Quintation

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Can anyone cite a reference to Quintation in any journal? I’ve never seen it before anywhere, the only term I’ve seen published is pentation. How does the entry enhance the quality of the Wikipedia? Daniel Geisler 01:32, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This is ridiculous! The name of the fourth operation is tetration, which uses a Greek numerical prefix, but, this operation is quintation, which uses a Latin numerical prefix. Georgia guy 02:00, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

True. Google finds only two web pages with quintation (in this meaning), so I'd like to see a reference. By the way, I suspect that the value given for $2\uparrow \uparrow \uparrow 3$ at the bottom is wrong; could you please check it?. -- Jitse Niesen 12:08, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It can be moved if you like, I don't care. But yes, the value for $2\uparrow \uparrow \uparrow 3$ is $2\uparrow 2\uparrow 2\uparrow 2\uparrow 2\uparrow 2\uparrow 2\uparrow 2\uparrow 2\uparrow 2\uparrow 2\uparrow 2\uparrow 2\uparrow 2\uparrow 2\uparrow 2$, which is much, much higher than 65536, or $2^{65536}$, or $3^{65536}$, or whatever. And no matter what it is named, it is the Knuth triple arrow operator. :) Zircean 13:31, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC) P.S. By the way, I think quintation sounds better than pentation, but it's your call.

It does not matter what sounds better, we should use the same name as is used in the literature. If it hasn't been used in the literature, then there shouldn't be an article under any name, in my opinion. -- Jitse Niesen 12:01, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, but quintation/pentation is not a very well known or frequently used function, so it doesn't really appear in literature, except in a few websites. So, if you want to change it, fine by me. Although I have seen some people call it quintation, or pentation. And some people call the next one sextation, or hextation, but it's not even worth it to make an article on that because $2\uparrow \uparrow \uparrow \uparrow 2$ (= 4) is the only expression that does not have 1 as its base that is actually calculable. Zircean 20:41, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

so it doesn't really appear in literature, except in a few websites

This doesn't mean it is necessarily useful or even deserves an article. I'd probably vfd it, but, VfD is such a mess these days. Dysprosia 00:50, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There used to be articles about hexation and heptation and there was an AfC for octation. They're all gone now, but pentation seems to be surviving. --116.14.20.208 (talk) 04:21, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Value of 2^^^3

Triple-Check the info in the value of 2^^^3 to make sure it is correct. What I get is this:

2^^^3 = 2^^(2^^2) 2^^^3 = 2^^4 = 65,536

Where is the flaw in this?? Georgia guy 23:06, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You're right, the article is wrong. 2^^2 is not 2^2^2, as the article suggests when computing 2^^^3, but 2^^2 = 2^2; as you say. -- Jitse Niesen 10:50, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Note: The relevant page is now a redirect to Pentation. --116.14.26.124 (talk) 03:50, 23 June 2009 (UTC)