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:
42 x 42 x 42 x 42 x ... (for a total of 89 times) = 2945688677387183659504976648693207700546390111613723609366833545425091410949945141566710833704230892897490304424732630996097768910079278314422272
Therefore, 42 to the power of 89 is 2945688677387183659504976648693207700546390111613723609366833545425091410949945141566710833704230892897490304424732630996097768910079278314422272.