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 88 times) = 54607845538545710671683248895378265444440317274048528452782877890001227200908186702459409245301899253188596510851433425739883015464579677388105065601
Therefore, 49 to the power of 88 is 54607845538545710671683248895378265444440317274048528452782877890001227200908186702459409245301899253188596510851433425739883015464579677388105065601.

