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:
56 x 56 x 56 x 56 x ... (for a total of 86 times) = 2208870842834672289040856081495017913000270615524210116337786158783470936783179878069614443424822607076023513966842909257692896965241008199454850809856
Therefore, 56 to the power of 86 is 2208870842834672289040856081495017913000270615524210116337786158783470936783179878069614443424822607076023513966842909257692896965241008199454850809856.