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 99 times) = 11205917833040052599366112654787072142989099408218386677351691608349019529360750914402518053351376090433577241672270825710565636148566441916283835166946264506654468257451
Therefore, 51 to the power of 99 is 11205917833040052599366112654787072142989099408218386677351691608349019529360750914402518053351376090433577241672270825710565636148566441916283835166946264506654468257451.