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 81 times) = 27115769232194841181704768713150174270792672963182519556093782081076800527359571781615049283644514496697433546501446964708587873608998782513413357568
Therefore, 68 to the power of 81 is 27115769232194841181704768713150174270792672963182519556093782081076800527359571781615049283644514496697433546501446964708587873608998782513413357568.