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:
68 x 68 x 68 x 68 x ... (for a total of 73 times) = 59313100617525996556840615058350919957559365977351060047231960117546921469766807779977014913909673302290140706051660445846517808365568
Therefore, 68 to the power of 73 is 59313100617525996556840615058350919957559365977351060047231960117546921469766807779977014913909673302290140706051660445846517808365568.