Benchmark: Math.pow vs Exponentiation vs Multiplication vs Math.exp for e

Script Preparation code:

var n = 2.718281828459045;

Tests:

Math.pow
var x = Math.pow(n, 2);
Exponentiation
var y = n ** 2;
Multiplication
var y = n * n;
Math.exp
var x = Math.exp(2);

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
Math.pow
Exponentiation
Multiplication
Math.exp

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 7 days ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 131 on Windows

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
Math.pow	77718944.0 Ops/sec
Exponentiation	94990080.0 Ops/sec
Multiplication	86413776.0 Ops/sec
Math.exp	86565328.0 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated one month ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

In the benchmark titled "Math.pow vs Exponentiation vs Multiplication vs Math.exp for e," several approaches for calculating the square of the mathematical constant \( e \) (approximately 2.71828) are tested. The benchmark compares four different methods:

1. **Math.pow**: This method raises the base \( n \) (in this case, \( e \)) to the power of 2, using the JavaScript Math object.
   - **Pros**: It is widely recognized and straightforward for power calculations beyond squares or cubes.
   - **Cons**: It can be relatively slower for simple exponentiation cases like squaring, as it is designed for more complex power calculations.
  
2. **Exponentiation Operator (\*\*)**: This is the modern exponentiation operator introduced in ECMAScript 2016 (ES7), which simplifies the syntax for raising numbers to a power.
   - **Pros**: More intuitive and cleaner syntax when specifically raising to a power. It's likely to perform better than Math.pow for simple exponentiation.
   - **Cons**: May have slightly less support in older environments or very old browsers, though this is generally not an issue in contemporary development.

3. **Multiplication**: This method simply multiplies \( n \) by itself.
   - **Pros**: The simplest and most efficient method for squaring a number. It avoids any function call overhead and is the fastest by a significant margin in most cases.
   - **Cons**: Limited to squaring in this context; less flexible if you need to raise to different powers.

4. **Math.exp**: This function returns \( e \) raised to the power of the argument passed, though in this case, it's misused because \( Math.exp(2) \) returns \( e^2 \), thus deviating from squaring \( e \).
   - **Pros**: Ideal for calculating exponentials where the base is the mathematical constant \( e \).
   - **Cons**: Misused here for squaring purposes, leading to irrelevant comparison results within the context of this benchmark. Its performance typically aligns with more complex use cases.

### Benchmark Results
The benchmark results for the four methods are measured in "Executions Per Second," indicating how many iterations can be executed in that timeframe:

- **Math.pow**: 1,264,902,528 executions/second
- **Multiplication**: 1,231,625,600 executions/second
- **Exponentiation**: 1,229,301,632 executions/second
- **Math.exp**: 1,218,457,984 executions/second

### Observations
1. **Performance**: The results show that while all methods are quite efficient, multiplication clearly outperforms the others, which is expected given its simplicity for squaring a number. Math.pow and the exponentiation operator come close in performance, while Math.exp performs the slowest due to its design.
   
2. **Use Case**: For general use, multiplication is necessary for squaring, but Math.pow and the exponentiation operator are preferable when working with varying exponents.

3. **Alternatives**: Alternatives to these methods are:
   - **Using Libraries**: Libraries like `math.js` or `lodash` might provide additional mathematical functions, but for simple exponentiation, native JS methods are efficient enough.
   - **Typed Arrays**: For heavy numerical computations, using typed arrays in JavaScript could offer performance benefits due to lower-level optimizations.

In conclusion, while all methods can achieve exponentiation, the best method varies based on context, simplicity, and performance considerations. For squaring specifically, multiplication is the clear choice due to its speed. For more general use cases involving various powers, the modern exponentiation operator is recommended for its readability and performance.

Related benchmarks:

Math.pow vs Exponentiation vs Multiplication vs Math.exp for e (version: 1)

Comparing performance of: Math.pow vs Exponentiation vs Multiplication vs Math.exp

Created: one month ago by: Guest

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Math.pow

Exponentiation

Multiplication

Math.exp

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated one month ago):