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 97 times) = 1449613262918662356425328753271153621316652959026184133957133057140549226324159140104310899231961840901455280201108501090210223010200900685831700097793866757575822366335650666381312
Therefore, 72 to the power of 97 is 1449613262918662356425328753271153621316652959026184133957133057140549226324159140104310899231961840901455280201108501090210223010200900685831700097793866757575822366335650666381312.

