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:
53 x 53 x 53 x 53 x ... (for a total of 85 times) = 365972890427477322717332040586183478851436494809894964624010961098961115025638415745413186808410090407973456317901157325528192054870878286638936293
Therefore, 53 to the power of 85 is 365972890427477322717332040586183478851436494809894964624010961098961115025638415745413186808410090407973456317901157325528192054870878286638936293.