The first step is to understand what it means when a number has an exponent. The “power” of a number indicates how many times the base would be multiplied by itself to reach the correct value.
The second step is to write the number in the base-exponent form, and lastly calculate what the final result would be. Consider the example of 2 to the power of 4: in exponent form that would be
So re-applying these steps to our particular problem, we first convert our word problem to a base-exponent form of:
To simplify this, all that is needed is to multiply it out:
9 x 9 x 9 x 9 x ... (for a total of 86 times) = 11610630703530923996233764322605633554400975674804937772291047972101377433780374641
Therefore, 9 to the power of 86 is 11610630703530923996233764322605633554400975674804937772291047972101377433780374641.
