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:
81 x 81 x 81 x 81 x ... (for a total of 38 times) = 3329896365316142756322307042065269797678257903507506764336659647715734241
Therefore, 81 to the power of 38 is 3329896365316142756322307042065269797678257903507506764336659647715734241.