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:
97 x 97 x 97 x 97 x ... (for a total of 81 times) = 84822384211262493033231649725931925403109608453646846170487337084690646874762966785820229672732639396907738666041513765640469681871690195962342015212526949875297
Therefore, 97 to the power of 81 is 84822384211262493033231649725931925403109608453646846170487337084690646874762966785820229672732639396907738666041513765640469681871690195962342015212526949875297.