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 98 times) = 3734642804542694673304928339684903440360290548300415176063232044682349196517954782034451010203315482100413928177255823637569999967368629893450722931248929438566374350178376781666664444435951520201
Therefore, 99 to the power of 98 is 3734642804542694673304928339684903440360290548300415176063232044682349196517954782034451010203315482100413928177255823637569999967368629893450722931248929438566374350178376781666664444435951520201.