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:
59 x 59 x 59 x 59 x ... (for a total of 87 times) = 11591109614310218939309359901273869932377386383239214281463392154383676321481467333629508937357861801570629579235738413755429354210700465342013200981457619
Therefore, 59 to the power of 87 is 11591109614310218939309359901273869932377386383239214281463392154383676321481467333629508937357861801570629579235738413755429354210700465342013200981457619.