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:
87 x 87 x 87 x 87 x ... (for a total of 97 times) = 135946335044540398000462771511398340199052839080330580331026769530822360442647098778635062661055692880910678324616294833158267259549825104403077763576777386993306317711243796632916711118167
Therefore, 87 to the power of 97 is 135946335044540398000462771511398340199052839080330580331026769530822360442647098778635062661055692880910678324616294833158267259549825104403077763576777386993306317711243796632916711118167.