Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

This comic explores the hierarchy of mathematical hyper-operators through a classroom setting. The professor correctly explains that multiplication is repeated addition (23 = 2+2+2), exponentiation is repeated multiplication (2^3 = 22*2), and tetration is repeated exponentiation. Each operation in this sequence is defined as the repeated application of the one below it.

When the student asks what repeated tetration is called, the professor answers "penetration," which is the real mathematical term "pentation" (the fifth hyper-operator) deliberately mispronounced. The student is shocked, asking how that's possible, and the professor doubles down by saying the next hyper-operator up is "sexation" -- another deliberate mispronunciation of "hexation" (the sixth hyper-operator). The final panel has the professor beginning to define sexation as "repeated penet-WHOOOAAA," cutting himself off as the sexual double entendre becomes too obvious. The humor comes from the fact that the actual names of these higher hyper-operators (pentation, hexation) sound suspiciously close to sexual terms, and the comic plays this coincidence to the hilt.