The little 3 floating above and to the right of a number means “cubed,” and it tells you to multiply that number by itself three times. In math, it’s called a superscript 3 or an exponent. So when you see 5³, it means 5 × 5 × 5, which equals 125.
How Exponents Work
The small raised number is called an exponent (or power), and the full-sized number beneath it is called the base. The exponent tells you how many times to multiply the base by itself. When the exponent is 3, the operation is specifically called “cubing.”
Here’s the easiest way to work through a cubed calculation: do the first multiplication, then multiply the result by the base one more time. For example, 3³ means 3 × 3 × 3. Start with 3 × 3 = 9, then multiply 9 × 3 = 27. A few more common cubes worth knowing:
- 2³ = 2 × 2 × 2 = 8
- 4³ = 4 × 4 × 4 = 64
- 5³ = 5 × 5 × 5 = 125
- 10³ = 10 × 10 × 10 = 1,000
Negative numbers follow the same process, and the result stays negative. For instance, (-5)³ = -5 × -5 × -5. The first two negatives cancel out to give you 25, but multiplying 25 by -5 brings it back to -125. The cube of a positive number is always positive, and the cube of a negative number is always negative.
Why It’s Called “Cubed”
The name comes directly from geometry. If you have a cube (like a die or a box) where every side is 3 units long, you find the volume by multiplying 3 × 3 × 3 = 27 cubic units. Three dimensions, three multiplications. That connection between the shape and the math is why raising any number to the third power is called cubing it, and why volume measurements use the superscript 3: cm³ means cubic centimeters, m³ means cubic meters, ft³ means cubic feet.
Cubed vs. Squared
You’ve probably also seen a small 2 above a number. That means “squared,” and it tells you to multiply the number by itself just once: 3² = 3 × 3 = 9. Squaring relates to flat, two-dimensional area (like the surface of a square), while cubing relates to three-dimensional volume. The jump in results between the two gets dramatic fast. For a base of 2, squaring gives you 4 while cubing gives you 8. For a base of 10, squaring gives you 100 while cubing gives you 1,000.
Where You’ll See the Cubed Symbol
The most common place is in units of volume. Recipes, lab results, shipping dimensions, and science textbooks all use cubic units: mL (milliliters, equivalent to cm³), m³ for large spaces, and ft³ for storage capacity. Anytime something describes how much space a three-dimensional object takes up, cubing is involved.
In science and engineering, you’ll also see it in formulas for density (often expressed as kg/m³, or kilograms per cubic meter) and in chemical concentration measurements. If you’ve ever looked at air quality data or a nutrition label with a value per cubic unit, that little 3 is doing the work.
How to Type the Cubed Symbol
On a Windows computer, hold Alt and type 0179 on the numeric keypad, then release Alt. In Microsoft Word or Google Docs, you can also type a regular 3, highlight it, and apply superscript formatting: in Word, the shortcut is Ctrl + Shift + Plus (+). On a Mac, there’s no single keystroke, but you can go to Edit > Emoji & Symbols and search for “superscript three,” or copy ³ from the web and paste it.
On phones, some keyboards include ³ if you long-press the 3 key. If yours doesn’t, the common workaround is to write the caret symbol instead: 5^3 is widely understood to mean the same thing as 5³, especially in programming and casual math.