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 86 times) = 1759715703125709471148098879382490125240050118764133658508016530512677247744365870578077483681312002203891255981219811431641420028594036204490319939723519583474377046360064
Therefore, 98 to the power of 86 is 1759715703125709471148098879382490125240050118764133658508016530512677247744365870578077483681312002203891255981219811431641420028594036204490319939723519583474377046360064.