I love watching bprp basics because occasionally he drops a trick I've never been taught.
he just did one on inequalities of large exponents with incompatible bases.
which is bigger, 2^126 or 3^84?
the thing he notes is you don't need the bases to be compatible, you just have to get the powers to be equal with some other base.
126 factors into 3x42. 84 factors into 2x42. rule of powers turns that into (2^3)^42 and (3^2)^42. so that's 8^42 and 9^42, which makes it obvious that 3^84 is bigger.
Graham Sutherland🎃 / Polynomial.pdf.exe
npub1sz…7t4fx
2026-09-05 23:07:34 UTC
Author Public Key
npub1szz2a5n67z8nfx2s5z87xqk5znexu3kfdmprq5cqva8g0gdd8snq07t4fxSeen on
wss://relay.momostr.pinkPublished at
2026-09-05 23:07:34 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "6ddcc0262a3026965187930288abca764e7abcf384b38821885dc203d5b6077a",
"pubkey": "8084aed27af08f349950a08fe302d414f26e46c96ec2305300674e87a1ad3c26",
"created_at": 1788649654,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"proxy",
"https://chaos.social/@gsuberland/117220943782459549",
"web"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://chaos.social/users/gsuberland/statuses/117220943782459549",
"activitypub"
],
[
"L",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"l",
"pink.momostr.activitypub:https://chaos.social/users/gsuberland/statuses/117220943782459549",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"-"
]
],
"content": "I love watching bprp basics because occasionally he drops a trick I've never been taught.\n\nhe just did one on inequalities of large exponents with incompatible bases.\n\nwhich is bigger, 2^126 or 3^84?\n\nthe thing he notes is you don't need the bases to be compatible, you just have to get the powers to be equal with some other base.\n\n126 factors into 3x42. 84 factors into 2x42. rule of powers turns that into (2^3)^42 and (3^2)^42. so that's 8^42 and 9^42, which makes it obvious that 3^84 is bigger.",
"sig": "04113ad187e1961c2386ede50b80537f540dbc7e4a43196b8d50eaab8ea018da3ad9cdb737003d36dce8a5ac78670feb9e3a86059ea148c88b32f5321b89ed6e"
}