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 85 times) = 20129353252230245205653609425136256214743699105801754400598321457144079913022113188577999032726702076653826446540715610829549
Therefore, 29 to the power of 85 is 20129353252230245205653609425136256214743699105801754400598321457144079913022113188577999032726702076653826446540715610829549.