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:
54 x 54 x 54 x 54 x ... (for a total of 97 times) = 1102033262172621363066924114728739449459348279563206411088320037128231958513706547817785183169520712646640868473044833702603022229975157375986056997148172509254132957184
Therefore, 54 to the power of 97 is 1102033262172621363066924114728739449459348279563206411088320037128231958513706547817785183169520712646640868473044833702603022229975157375986056997148172509254132957184.