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:
59 x 59 x 59 x 59 x ... (for a total of 72 times) = 31720851604469538199522351761983798592451667163134220462061256614110575887275341843053296435189446154448459945873939189838957281
Therefore, 59 to the power of 72 is 31720851604469538199522351761983798592451667163134220462061256614110575887275341843053296435189446154448459945873939189838957281.