What is the double multiplication sign for?

Question

I accidentally typed 4 ** 5 into Google and received 1,024 instead of 20. But 4^5 is also 1024...

Does the double multiplication sign also mean the power sign? Why two symbols?

Answer 1

Exponentiation in some software. So a**b means a^b.

Answer 2

Caveat: The symbol ^ in C family languages is bitwise xor. This is true in Python, too. The ** symbol is also seen in Python.