Kind of tangential, but I'm wondering: if he is unable to implement BFS in a reasonable time, how was he able to implement Math.pow over the phone? Would this h

Kind of tangential, but I'm wondering: if he is unable to implement BFS in a reasonable time, how was he able to implement Math.pow over the phone? Would this have been a Math.pow that didn't account for fractional exponents? I spent a few minutes trying to recall how it would work and I couldn't, and it seems like a fully working Math.pow is a little complex for a gatekeeper question – or maybe I just forgot the trick.