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:
81 x 81 x 81 x 81 x ... (for a total of 88 times) = 884467056134897769177403028352204277531894146980966017349124212298943513062971345024451521058208349266478534208013045806724329989399740544099720742247653959918481338241
Therefore, 81 to the power of 88 is 884467056134897769177403028352204277531894146980966017349124212298943513062971345024451521058208349266478534208013045806724329989399740544099720742247653959918481338241.