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:
78 x 78 x 78 x 78 x ... (for a total of 99 times) = 20766612844765188857786762648272694943589386814674370746959294632907770571438267161450588738764972878263322158837771462252044810393559899943570101487706393413731551770103125412825102548992
Therefore, 78 to the power of 99 is 20766612844765188857786762648272694943589386814674370746959294632907770571438267161450588738764972878263322158837771462252044810393559899943570101487706393413731551770103125412825102548992.