While loop performing more loops than instructed

Question

In this piece of code the iterations should stop at one position earlier than they do.

k = 0
while 2^k < 5:
    k += 1
print(k)

I expect it to print '3' but it prints out '4'.

Answer 1

^ is the bitwise XOR operator. You probably meant ** for exponentiation.

Answer 2

In Python the ^ operator is bitwise exclusive-or - not exponentiation. Use ** for exponentiation.