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 97 times) = 132753760222777929652518852658968344964931101689157057439812177098233078651408028655258624248876421198505482894291851610746874616508369822227011247635269497513289876625552626147480686161
Therefore, 81 to the power of 97 is 132753760222777929652518852658968344964931101689157057439812177098233078651408028655258624248876421198505482894291851610746874616508369822227011247635269497513289876625552626147480686161.