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:
99 x 99 x 99 x 99 x ... (for a total of 96 times) = 381047118104550012580851784479635082171236664452649237431204167399484664474844891545194470993094121222366485886874382577040097945859466370110266598433724052501415605568653890589395413165590401
Therefore, 99 to the power of 96 is 381047118104550012580851784479635082171236664452649237431204167399484664474844891545194470993094121222366485886874382577040097945859466370110266598433724052501415605568653890589395413165590401.