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:
51 x 51 x 51 x 51 x ... (for a total of 71 times) = 17277563704993856532212363451596447596623771700684409630436173949266784426333262575344791804129467839402142422442056841051
Therefore, 51 to the power of 71 is 17277563704993856532212363451596447596623771700684409630436173949266784426333262575344791804129467839402142422442056841051.