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Let $G$ be the Galois group of a polynomial of the irreducible quartic. Irreducibility makes $G$ a transitive subgroup of $S_4$. The three roots of the given cubic resolvent of a quartic correspond to the three partitions of the four quartic roots into two unordered pairs, and the kernel of the $S_4$-action on these partitions is the Klein four-group $V_4$. If the resolvent has Galois group $S_3$, the image of $G$ in this action is all of $S_3$. Among the transitive subgroups of the symmetric group on four points, only $S_4$ has this image. Hence

Now put $f_p(t)=t^4+pt+p$. The Eisenstein criterion at $p$ proves that $f_p$ is an irreducible polynomial, and its cubic resolvent isIts discriminant of a depressed cubic isFor odd $p$, the $p$-adic valuation of ${\Delta }_p$ is three because $p\nmid 256$; for $p=2$, ${\Delta }_2=2^4\cdot 101$. Thus ${\Delta }_p$ is never a square in $\mathbb{Q}$.

By the rational root theorem, a reducible $g_p$ has an integer root among $\pm 1,\pm p,\pm p^2$. Reduction modulo $p$ shows that the root is divisible by $p$; writing it as $pk$, with $k\in \{\pm 1,\pm p\}$, givesThe only possibilities are $k=-1,p=3$ and $k=1,p=5$, corresponding to roots $-3$ and $5$. For every other prime, $g_p$ is irreducible with nonsquare discriminant, so its Galois group is $S_3$ and the criterion above gives the quartic group $S_4$. For $p=3$ or $5$, the reducible resolvent makes the quartic group a proper subgroup. Therefore

Ordinal exponentiation is defined by transfinite recursion:when $\lambda$ is a nonzero limit ordinal. If $\alpha \ge 1$, each successor step and each supremum show that $\beta \mapsto {\alpha }^{\beta }$ is nondecreasing. If $\alpha \ge 2$, transfinite induction strengthens this to strict increase: ${\alpha }^{\beta }<{\alpha }^{\beta +1}$, and the value at a limit exceeds every earlier value.

Strict increase can disappear when the base changes. For example, with $\omega <\omega +1<\omega +2$,because for every positive finite $n$, both finite powers have leading term ${\omega }^n$, and taking the supremum gives ${\omega }^{\omega }$.

We next proveApply transfinite induction to $\gamma$. The zero and successor cases follow directly from the recursive definitions and the associativity of ordinal multiplication. At a limit $\lambda$, continuity of ordinal multiplication in its right argument givesThe superficially similar identity $(\alpha \beta {)}^{\gamma }={\alpha }^{\gamma }{\beta }^{\gamma }$ is false: for $\alpha =\omega$, $\beta =2$, and $\gamma =2$,

Finally,For the first equivalence, bases zero and one fail, while strict increase embeds every countable ordinal into the powers of any base $\alpha \ge 2$. For the second, $\alpha \ge {\omega }_2$ immediately gives ${\alpha }^{{\omega }_1}\ge \alpha$. Conversely, if $\alpha <{\omega }_2$, then $|\alpha |\le {\aleph }_1$. Every exponent below the first uncountable ordinal ${\omega }_1$ is countable, so each ${\alpha }^{\beta }$ has cardinality at most ${\aleph }_1$; the supremum of ${\aleph }_1$ such ordinals still has cardinality at most ${\aleph }_1$ and is therefore below the second uncountable ordinal ${\omega }_2$.