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:
33 x 33 x 33 x 33 x ... (for a total of 81 times) = 999146405036909953079987491593906460756070279008573979601311318824135219478605764562347047477772783170282140438726222195233
Therefore, 33 to the power of 81 is 999146405036909953079987491593906460756070279008573979601311318824135219478605764562347047477772783170282140438726222195233.