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:
66 x 66 x 66 x 66 x ... (for a total of 82 times) = 159441993034401873918533936775649789419985763219753112580442387019135322331944920359479031036682923599925701421673713293285516519921151956047737389056
Therefore, 66 to the power of 82 is 159441993034401873918533936775649789419985763219753112580442387019135322331944920359479031036682923599925701421673713293285516519921151956047737389056.