Math Tutor Explains: What is 38 to the Power of 81?

A math tutor would explain that to solve for 38 to the power of 81, we must first understand the structure. The number 38 is called the base, and the number 81 is called the exponent. In short, the base must be multiplied by itself the number of times as the exponent. Let’s look at this problem in more detail.

Math Tutor's Solution: 38 to the Power of 81 is equal to 91721537478355094179308567966137125233999855004160983096874648729156424818304209066614159310122540993386031382417496275721125888

Methods

Step-by-step from math tutor: finding 38 to the power of 81

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

242^4
. To solve this, we need to multiply the base, 2 by itself, 4 times -
2⋅2⋅2⋅22\cdot2\cdot2\cdot2
= 16. So
24=162^4 = 16
.

So re-applying these steps to our particular problem, we first convert our word problem to a base-exponent form of:

388138^{81}

To simplify this, all that is needed is to multiply it out:

38 x 38 x 38 x 38 x ... (for a total of 81 times) = 91721537478355094179308567966137125233999855004160983096874648729156424818304209066614159310122540993386031382417496275721125888

Therefore, 38 to the power of 81 is 91721537478355094179308567966137125233999855004160983096874648729156424818304209066614159310122540993386031382417496275721125888.

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