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:
46 x 46 x 46 x 46 x ... (for a total of 87 times) = 4570159488939705876595448084752137173551595279869419603523778954999473155602936663362597212478952213367578308814145717893443327339744567352098816
Therefore, 46 to the power of 87 is 4570159488939705876595448084752137173551595279869419603523778954999473155602936663362597212478952213367578308814145717893443327339744567352098816.