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:
49 x 49 x 49 x 49 x ... (for a total of 87 times) = 1114445827317259401462923446844454396825312597429561805158834242653086269406289524539987943781671413330379520629621090321222102356419993416083776849
Therefore, 49 to the power of 87 is 1114445827317259401462923446844454396825312597429561805158834242653086269406289524539987943781671413330379520629621090321222102356419993416083776849.