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:
26 x 26 x 26 x 26 x ... (for a total of 82 times) = 106614072630740482362334650938981790451596091531420951755761004833493300814501371167816591009134819912900129299890176
Therefore, 26 to the power of 82 is 106614072630740482362334650938981790451596091531420951755761004833493300814501371167816591009134819912900129299890176.