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 98 times) = 18069385668231788328767987002979629822683906250327989485735634216833617030940895009649693747633136808872222900390625
Therefore, 15 to the power of 98 is 18069385668231788328767987002979629822683906250327989485735634216833617030940895009649693747633136808872222900390625.