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:
47 x 47 x 47 x 47 x ... (for a total of 87 times) = 29683399722110732458065271318368505805204772328812464396382906569031215309322043386514833499019198333791220308531333529919432262174285542126525263
Therefore, 47 to the power of 87 is 29683399722110732458065271318368505805204772328812464396382906569031215309322043386514833499019198333791220308531333529919432262174285542126525263.