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:
16 x 16 x 16 x 16 x ... (for a total of 86 times) = 35835915874844867368919076489095108449946327955754392558399825615420669938882575126094039892345713852416
Therefore, 16 to the power of 86 is 35835915874844867368919076489095108449946327955754392558399825615420669938882575126094039892345713852416.