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:
73 x 73 x 73 x 73 x ... (for a total of 87 times) = 1285549579028434284793552783301809575518133250653483603165472549253603651088709725043863294978249353489902698450106305655623984504965408456045362614382948586592697
Therefore, 73 to the power of 87 is 1285549579028434284793552783301809575518133250653483603165472549253603651088709725043863294978249353489902698450106305655623984504965408456045362614382948586592697.