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 96 times) = 53713875667199602763383619055819546624065871917875393452989999103263589851344312332588371332285807008773270534412491338997594694198130247342481322561769642258629032948301084725234139984389121
Therefore, 97 to the power of 96 is 53713875667199602763383619055819546624065871917875393452989999103263589851344312332588371332285807008773270534412491338997594694198130247342481322561769642258629032948301084725234139984389121.