The ordered pairs (1, 4), (2, 16), (3, 64), (4, 256), and (5, 1,024) represent a function. what is a rule that represents this function?

Try to graph where these points would fall. 

As you can already notice, the y-values are increasing exponentially. 

How would you get 4->16? 4^2
16->64? 4^3

I have attached a graph below that will help you visualize this.