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 98 times) = 10753054578045012301854027065376435942159419236821721652624786344956879370764050321075948564158990117078944114437639980470496843937177955600387911058456829298576480006669762717945935579041
Therefore, 81 to the power of 98 is 10753054578045012301854027065376435942159419236821721652624786344956879370764050321075948564158990117078944114437639980470496843937177955600387911058456829298576480006669762717945935579041.