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:
52 x 52 x 52 x 52 x ... (for a total of 86 times) = 3769533025519801141444612600471707145120923043935146475096303581721089749532607198879063741123420792669738910020570009227839890520497940913522212864
Therefore, 52 to the power of 86 is 3769533025519801141444612600471707145120923043935146475096303581721089749532607198879063741123420792669738910020570009227839890520497940913522212864.