Math Tutor Explains: What is 55 to the Power of 72?

A math tutor would explain that to solve for 55 to the power of 72, we must first understand the structure. The number 55 is called the base, and the number 72 is called the exponent. In short, the base must be multiplied by itself the number of times as the exponent. Let’s look at this problem in more detail.

Math Tutor's Solution: 55 to the Power of 72 is equal to 202354861951890441172505192395705089775325016531379091426874672325873807595086919229078470383598187254392541944980621337890625

Methods

Step-by-step from math tutor: finding 55 to the power of 72

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

242^4
. To solve this, we need to multiply the base, 2 by itself, 4 times -
2⋅2⋅2⋅22\cdot2\cdot2\cdot2
= 16. So
24=162^4 = 16
.

So re-applying these steps to our particular problem, we first convert our word problem to a base-exponent form of:

557255^{72}

To simplify this, all that is needed is to multiply it out:

55 x 55 x 55 x 55 x ... (for a total of 72 times) = 202354861951890441172505192395705089775325016531379091426874672325873807595086919229078470383598187254392541944980621337890625

Therefore, 55 to the power of 72 is 202354861951890441172505192395705089775325016531379091426874672325873807595086919229078470383598187254392541944980621337890625.

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