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:
21 x 21 x 21 x 21 x ... (for a total of 68 times) = 814539297859635326656252304265822609649892589675472294710556909651492646046067319849040561
Therefore, 21 to the power of 68 is 814539297859635326656252304265822609649892589675472294710556909651492646046067319849040561.