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:
84 x 84 x 84 x 84 x ... (for a total of 72 times) = 3532714951971506398689296390097834602333516233089629237273927962657127472522915763766897339152003859058802103856862125787694614920724217856
Therefore, 84 to the power of 72 is 3532714951971506398689296390097834602333516233089629237273927962657127472522915763766897339152003859058802103856862125787694614920724217856.