TITLE: Find the value of $\space\large i^{i^i}$?
QUESTION [27 upvotes]: Is $\large i^{i^i}$ real ? How to find it?

Thank You!

REPLY [14 votes]: Complex powers may have more than one value. In our case
$$ i^i=e^{i \log i}=\exp \left(i \left(\ln(1)+i \frac{\pi}{2}+2\pi k i\right)\right)=e^{-\frac{\pi}{2}+2\pi k} $$ where $k$ is an integer. Thus $$i^{i^i}=e^{i^i \log(i)}=\exp\left(e^{-\frac{\pi}{2}+2\pi k}\cdot\left(i \frac{\pi}{2}+2\pi l i\right)\right), $$
which is $e$ to an imaginary power. It is therefore a point on the unit circle, but it can never be chosen real.

REPLY [7 votes]: We have $i^i=(e^{i\pi /2})^i=e^{-\pi /2}$. Then, $$i^{i^i}=i^{e^{-\pi /2}}=(e^{-i\pi /2})^{e^{-\pi /2}}=e^{-i\pi e^{-\pi /2}/2}=\cos (\pi e^{-\pi /2}/2)-i\sin(\pi e^{-\pi /2}/2) $$ Now $\sin(\pi e^{-\pi /2}/2)$ is non-zero, since $e^{-\pi /2}/2$ is not an integer.