In Perl, and I believe pretty much most of the languages out there, you give precedence to an equation by encapsulating it in parentheses. Consider the following:

  5 + 9 * 2 = 28

  5 + (9 * 2) = 23

By wrapping the equation 9 * 2 in parentheses, we force it to be calculated first, giving a different result. Even though you don't deserve it, here it is in code:

#!/usr/bin/perl

$complex = (9*2) - (2*9) + (180/10) * 10 * (2 * 5) / 100;

print $complex;

This gives us the result:

  18

Exponentially Yours

The exponential operator (**) allows you to get the power of a number. For instance, 5**100 is 5 to the hundredth power, or 7.88860905221012e+069. Or simply put, some ridiculously crazy number. Something simpler to comprehend might be 3**3, which is 3 to the third power or 3 * 3 * 3 (which of course equals 27). Here it is in code:

#!/usr/bin/perl

$power = 0**10;

$powera = 1**10;

$powerb = 2**10;

$powerc = 3**10;

$powerd = 4**10;

print $power . "\t" ;

print $powera . "\t";

print $powerb. "\t" ;

print $powerc. "\t" ;

print $powerd. "\t" ;

And the result is...

  0 1 1024 59049 1048576