nLab ultrareal numbers

where each operation is defined by iterating the previous one (the next operation in the sequence is pentation). The peculiarity of the tetration among these operations is that the first three (addition, multiplication and exponentiation) are generalized for complex values of n, while for tetration, no such regular generalization is yet established; and tetration is not considered an elementary function. Addition (a + n) is the most basic operation, multiplication (an) is also a primary operation, though for natural numbers it can be thought of as a chained addition involving n numbers a, and exponentiation (an) can be thought of as a chained multiplication involving n numbers a. Analogously, tetration (na) can be thought of as a chained power involving n numbers a. The parameter a may be called the base-parameter in the following, while the parameter n in the following may be called the height-parameter (which is integral in the first approach but may be generalized to fractional, real and complex heights