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:
28 x 28 x 28 x 28 x ... (for a total of 72 times) = 156811625474083119473503635705919098161400131481861974194857746287538302337159562725023543823616616431616
Therefore, 28 to the power of 72 is 156811625474083119473503635705919098161400131481861974194857746287538302337159562725023543823616616431616.