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 77 times) = 898144994103398334879090065653881441055968306997838920689381527104178990481571441531923152587475144448311428414763438914899457039675729976927532561
Therefore, 81 to the power of 77 is 898144994103398334879090065653881441055968306997838920689381527104178990481571441531923152587475144448311428414763438914899457039675729976927532561.