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:
17 x 17 x 17 x 17 x ... (for a total of 97 times) = 225707179479092945513151173595582122213722199806610935152202288068163562080473579831553978069612272255088225422973416977
Therefore, 17 to the power of 97 is 225707179479092945513151173595582122213722199806610935152202288068163562080473579831553978069612272255088225422973416977.