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:
78 x 78 x 78 x 78 x ... (for a total of 81 times) = 1818288608612977668870456938031043903777948572750253752605284738901327945085138168544906175405948611547202398491069158601293288402968741750258535002800128
Therefore, 78 to the power of 81 is 1818288608612977668870456938031043903777948572750253752605284738901327945085138168544906175405948611547202398491069158601293288402968741750258535002800128.

