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 84 times) = 72071113098380566076938224034751690345278957875240563386894439267441471350602926909444015522175138261120487406725758976
Therefore, 26 to the power of 84 is 72071113098380566076938224034751690345278957875240563386894439267441471350602926909444015522175138261120487406725758976.