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 97 times) = 178819449339038394980334421284798954670156462719758492055881496096893258330684116036949965809609825291930136270005218434105363552771506176
Therefore, 26 to the power of 97 is 178819449339038394980334421284798954670156462719758492055881496096893258330684116036949965809609825291930136270005218434105363552771506176.