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 77 times) = 36749994633427504622710965112126184251479595294169767314631682973164151902809397427223054539437741826491475201355019208904195693321526050567626953125
Therefore, 85 to the power of 77 is 36749994633427504622710965112126184251479595294169767314631682973164151902809397427223054539437741826491475201355019208904195693321526050567626953125.