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:
71 x 71 x 71 x 71 x ... (for a total of 99 times) = 1881813254673097030469233028105067386337990814078710933877929766954013052270079804260532153824056034272009612158171636782991131053049254282435811957919117962810468634339032531275543831
Therefore, 71 to the power of 99 is 1881813254673097030469233028105067386337990814078710933877929766954013052270079804260532153824056034272009612158171636782991131053049254282435811957919117962810468634339032531275543831.