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:
98 x 98 x 98 x 98 x ... (for a total of 78 times) = 206839702292837295898069916397721464874159505726286201136902256843873925605536354546725253670406846242312675776980767364202531211348787886241429313441234944
Therefore, 98 to the power of 78 is 206839702292837295898069916397721464874159505726286201136902256843873925605536354546725253670406846242312675776980767364202531211348787886241429313441234944.