Math Tutor Explains: What is 87 to the Power of 38?

A math tutor would explain that to solve for 87 to the power of 38, we must first understand the structure. The number 87 is called the base, and the number 38 is called the exponent. In short, the base must be multiplied by itself the number of times as the exponent. Let’s look at this problem in more detail.

Math Tutor's Solution: 87 to the Power of 38 is equal to 50318953400710968587120897755296942284188011262256077570187253156101962929

Methods

Step-by-step from math tutor: finding 87 to the power of 38

The first step a math tutor would suggest 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

242^4
. To solve this, we need to multiply the base, 2 by itself, 4 times -
2⋅2⋅2⋅22\cdot2\cdot2\cdot2
= 16. So
24=162^4 = 16
.

So re-applying these steps to our particular problem, we first convert our word problem to a base-exponent form of:

873887^{38}

To simplify this, all that is needed is to multiply it out:

87 x 87 x 87 x 87 x ... (for a total of 38 times) = 50318953400710968587120897755296942284188011262256077570187253156101962929

Therefore, 87 to the power of 38 is 50318953400710968587120897755296942284188011262256077570187253156101962929.

Math Tutor Suggests: Try related exponent problems

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