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:
42 x 42 x 42 x 42 x ... (for a total of 56 times) = 7979216745125139105971467204791098183581571792487307607717522262106992608006725442790752256
Therefore, 42 to the power of 56 is 7979216745125139105971467204791098183581571792487307607717522262106992608006725442790752256.
