Casio fx -5000F - Exponents

[jebem]

This is intriguing matter.

I'm not a mathematician but I believe the calculator may be using different algorithms depending on the exponent type (integer or real).

Wikipedia has an interesting article here.

However, on my fx-5000F I get exactly the same result using x^n or x^y as long as the exponent is a integer of course.
When the exponent is a real value it is not possible to do any comparison as only the x^y function will accept it.

So in the end I agree that x^y should be sufficient, despite that the x^n is a direct function while the x^y is a shifted function and requires one more keystroke.