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:
96 x 96 x 96 x 96 x ... (for a total of 85 times) = 3112109063352285682862696827351560954714379773092191212017527216492157334129515792005084436561332557925447557969214122746283067146552151391536301750016297265035346968576
Therefore, 96 to the power of 85 is 3112109063352285682862696827351560954714379773092191212017527216492157334129515792005084436561332557925447557969214122746283067146552151391536301750016297265035346968576.