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:
47 x 47 x 47 x 47 x ... (for a total of 78 times) = 26523627437124553070081840558563188455438393858132774635620323885195843009282548763177047195169872498579705836917008782207454037089
Therefore, 47 to the power of 78 is 26523627437124553070081840558563188455438393858132774635620323885195843009282548763177047195169872498579705836917008782207454037089.