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:
55 x 55 x 55 x 55 x ... (for a total of 56 times) = 28860949285781355795036746167855242710318255539896939963152855401773422272526659071445465087890625
Therefore, 55 to the power of 56 is 28860949285781355795036746167855242710318255539896939963152855401773422272526659071445465087890625.