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:
25 x 25 x 25 x 25 x ... (for a total of 87 times) = 41761948595190556970945882299241904356487451251641385905655273315006228765423911854226535211864757002331316471099853515625
Therefore, 25 to the power of 87 is 41761948595190556970945882299241904356487451251641385905655273315006228765423911854226535211864757002331316471099853515625.