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 85 times) = 13914415518924113953932832520105606151738590121035930307686524223443284064380633973650946410480349043649894874340655900431544004844553141323929251
Therefore, 51 to the power of 85 is 13914415518924113953932832520105606151738590121035930307686524223443284064380633973650946410480349043649894874340655900431544004844553141323929251.