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:
48 x 48 x 48 x 48 x ... (for a total of 58 times) = 32508113529132667733841675308447736987415993203335392905947822423359768664301532812042156789202944
Therefore, 48 to the power of 58 is 32508113529132667733841675308447736987415993203335392905947822423359768664301532812042156789202944.