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:
34 x 34 x 34 x 34 x ... (for a total of 72 times) = 184706435392845243790010841195358639150446641397093255933551104934989187367665296064280594363366524112345235456
Therefore, 34 to the power of 72 is 184706435392845243790010841195358639150446641397093255933551104934989187367665296064280594363366524112345235456.