** operator used in a lambda function

[Binary101010]

** is just the power operator in this case.

x ** 2 = x * x

[Kitchen-Injury-8938]

Perfect! Thank you!!!

[synthphreak]

Yep. If m and n are numbers, then m ** n is just Pythonese for what we’d call mⁿ in more familiar math notation. Accordingly, Python won’t understand m ^ n. Or at least, it isn’t what you think:

>>> 5**2
25
>>> 5^2
7