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:
85 x 85 x 85 x 85 x ... (for a total of 42 times) = 1085412653046561498472094272013834548573475833101176476702676154673099517822265625
Therefore, 85 to the power of 42 is 1085412653046561498472094272013834548573475833101176476702676154673099517822265625.