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 97 times) = 88924158227561281226520409113692540181550107099679841392193219526176387112718869278739153030704587801792325036783536742123291998603333570095374837587568245668364849
Therefore, 49 to the power of 97 is 88924158227561281226520409113692540181550107099679841392193219526176387112718869278739153030704587801792325036783536742123291998603333570095374837587568245668364849.

