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 73 times) = 20864422962747809174108524216139051359009860634863197145477852473459685593278322907148331985320673889384314043682059753515243519702133177041
Therefore, 81 to the power of 73 is 20864422962747809174108524216139051359009860634863197145477852473459685593278322907148331985320673889384314043682059753515243519702133177041.