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:
37 x 37 x 37 x 37 x ... (for a total of 86 times) = 733412436040706635406063989193958044980014271118023772256074700342547655564329149230724105801874820484327568339188376675741265125091209
Therefore, 37 to the power of 86 is 733412436040706635406063989193958044980014271118023772256074700342547655564329149230724105801874820484327568339188376675741265125091209.