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 88 times) = 27877876251777756601085365426523484312054709049614549680662195864658831642193461658922413838502857388338460092077530048218241814785291097216405895415142588493070336
Therefore, 72 to the power of 88 is 27877876251777756601085365426523484312054709049614549680662195864658831642193461658922413838502857388338460092077530048218241814785291097216405895415142588493070336.

