Past exam of the mathematical methods I course of the University of Oxford / 2019 / 1 / d / Solution

Use the principal complex logarithm at each stage of the nested complex exponentiation. Since $\mathrm{Log}i=i\pi /2$,This inner value is positive real, so its principal complex logarithm is $-\pi /2$. ConsequentlyOne must retain the parentheses: complex exponentiation is not associative. If all complex logarithm branches are allowed, the inner values are $e^{-\pi /2-2\pi k}$. Taking the outer logarithm with an independent integer branch index $\ell$ yields $\exp [-i\pi /2-2\pi ik-2\pi \ell ]=-i{e}^{-2\pi \ell }$. Thus the complete multivalued set is $\{-i{e}^{-2\pi \ell }:\ell \in \mathbb{Z}\}$, and the boxed answer selects its principal evaluation.