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 89 times) = 2491263352710084879541949832064021229485839836897365763785242906250171225037816245252538889132523801204488050168989828559036055755714915599298624386789060178312228241408
Therefore, 78 to the power of 89 is 2491263352710084879541949832064021229485839836897365763785242906250171225037816245252538889132523801204488050168989828559036055755714915599298624386789060178312228241408.