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:
31 x 31 x 31 x 31 x ... (for a total of 84 times) = 188097178930776762788654183437388566387846494464835753480943538710688707802385463651395525644174458017555706997580273556417921
Therefore, 31 to the power of 84 is 188097178930776762788654183437388566387846494464835753480943538710688707802385463651395525644174458017555706997580273556417921.