What does the Unicode character ^ mean in SQL for exact numerics?

Question

What does the symbol ^ mean in SQL?

How do you read the following:

smallint = Integer data from –2 ^ 15 (–32,768) to 2 ^ 15–1 (32,767)

from the Transact-SQL documentation?

Answer 1

^ usually means exponential.

IE: 2^2 = 4. or 2^6 = 64.

Answer 2

^ means exponentiation there. It is a very common meaning, and not at all specific to SQL.