The first step a math tutor would suggest 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:
23 x 23 x 23 x 23 x ... (for a total of 86 times) = 1284085368724924529233033353649895160567403624043062583007782007813323119968192092419836235359829935318432014830727089
Therefore, 23 to the power of 86 is 1284085368724924529233033353649895160567403624043062583007782007813323119968192092419836235359829935318432014830727089.