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:
71 x 71 x 71 x 71 x ... (for a total of 87 times) = 114677004084456219621617916072619415535145734468094640309554030516930933341472521687017355646734701696967302967840512430179900402893164830655186093185906254471991
Therefore, 71 to the power of 87 is 114677004084456219621617916072619415535145734468094640309554030516930933341472521687017355646734701696967302967840512430179900402893164830655186093185906254471991.