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 97 times) = 4592871574961045819434893850559220963753664530583303963928715425829849593112365887662576458799433962487039659242136911866799383172025553240673311
Therefore, 31 to the power of 97 is 4592871574961045819434893850559220963753664530583303963928715425829849593112365887662576458799433962487039659242136911866799383172025553240673311.