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:
72 x 72 x 72 x 72 x ... (for a total of 71 times) = 742347493713361104639240279723021368679730574904258494031521397837233595144708793051345331406794285294173590435796380032522810032128
Therefore, 72 to the power of 71 is 742347493713361104639240279723021368679730574904258494031521397837233595144708793051345331406794285294173590435796380032522810032128.