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:
29 x 29 x 29 x 29 x ... (for a total of 72 times) = 1961805052628792030674191028081537460998089453643947790625153952890552040016086211696475154063809144718241
Therefore, 29 to the power of 72 is 1961805052628792030674191028081537460998089453643947790625153952890552040016086211696475154063809144718241.