Why was the caret used for XOR instead of exponentiation?

Although there were older precursors, the influential French mathematician Rene Descartes is usually credited for introducing superscripted exponents (ab) into mathematical writing, in his work Geometrie which was published in 1637. This is the notation still universally used in mathematics today. Fortran is the oldest programming language widely used for numerical computations that provides an ex

[takc923]

Q「なんで ^ が冪乗の記号じゃなくてXORに使われるの？」 A「^ が使われたのは冪乗よりXORの方が先だよ。なんでXORに ^ が使われたかケン・トンプソンに聞いたら『使える記号の中からランダムに選んだ』だってさ」

[yyamano]

“it was a random choice of the characters left.”