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:
77 x 77 x 77 x 77 x ... (for a total of 97 times) = 976338334827935895773328424808481694179672089183036913721804215700360879224938846067254336873195887824848001403117020820072996590940779508551403892973348659073638694664902087399093197
Therefore, 77 to the power of 97 is 976338334827935895773328424808481694179672089183036913721804215700360879224938846067254336873195887824848001403117020820072996590940779508551403892973348659073638694664902087399093197.