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 81 times) = 5102633718060429037673292947177986093270182051257579789516333072391716833395338332372471401127261801986245967040108610426107556975947632184601911541510479
Therefore, 79 to the power of 81 is 5102633718060429037673292947177986093270182051257579789516333072391716833395338332372471401127261801986245967040108610426107556975947632184601911541510479.