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:
43 x 43 x 43 x 43 x ... (for a total of 97 times) = 279537573644609324609042104488898292179227641428833250707338521965848560587594478267049297188913790105014252135597060227656392076730684760843507116797578121643
Therefore, 43 to the power of 97 is 279537573644609324609042104488898292179227641428833250707338521965848560587594478267049297188913790105014252135597060227656392076730684760843507116797578121643.