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:
79 x 79 x 79 x 79 x ... (for a total of 72 times) = 42574599664074954393906869329820385868451879320154554468425738851729747497942464625938360283571915939261772955073306853799586518011872641
Therefore, 79 to the power of 72 is 42574599664074954393906869329820385868451879320154554468425738851729747497942464625938360283571915939261772955073306853799586518011872641.