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:
48 x 48 x 48 x 48 x ... (for a total of 39 times) = 370175999469438852037500553346201751380157764742896248712343846912
Therefore, 48 to the power of 39 is 370175999469438852037500553346201751380157764742896248712343846912.