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 84 times) = 77415099865245573304118629450315468153432255676215228034957189399095866755130541185314906476101916196293976571552106493028384385962881106219538574050062608923536938881
Therefore, 97 to the power of 84 is 77415099865245573304118629450315468153432255676215228034957189399095866755130541185314906476101916196293976571552106493028384385962881106219538574050062608923536938881.