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:
79 x 79 x 79 x 79 x ... (for a total of 86 times) = 15701091733911005039058018134515591100230024516717081888584305795418262516795142712396701976283136741150049062868709289366652374855096750702527661176436773532505121
Therefore, 79 to the power of 86 is 15701091733911005039058018134515591100230024516717081888584305795418262516795142712396701976283136741150049062868709289366652374855096750702527661176436773532505121.