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:
15 x 15 x 15 x 15 x ... (for a total of 80 times) = 12226459805570463568478318618066408150751288531066771937683146376230070018209517002105712890625
Therefore, 15 to the power of 80 is 12226459805570463568478318618066408150751288531066771937683146376230070018209517002105712890625.