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:
38 x 38 x 38 x 38 x ... (for a total of 80 times) = 2413724670483028794192330735950976979842101447477920607812490756030432232060637080700372613424277394562790299537302533571608576
Therefore, 38 to the power of 80 is 2413724670483028794192330735950976979842101447477920607812490756030432232060637080700372613424277394562790299537302533571608576.