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 86 times) = 5249716264413773157719174783930994347270351482866715900017791319497486524211922497961316966596966825984271587031536751628980713927483006286557899633315337788719104
Therefore, 78 to the power of 86 is 5249716264413773157719174783930994347270351482866715900017791319497486524211922497961316966596966825984271587031536751628980713927483006286557899633315337788719104.

