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:
50 x 50 x 50 x 50 x ... (for a total of 40 times) = 90949470177292823791503906250000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Therefore, 50 to the power of 40 is 90949470177292823791503906250000000000000000000000000000000000000000.