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:
85 x 85 x 85 x 85 x ... (for a total of 84 times) = 1178120627393575288170670553645246457367627767155208355984745177731630679919471336891900177712461652124930326557533311255566987885146090775378979742527008056640625
Therefore, 85 to the power of 84 is 1178120627393575288170670553645246457367627767155208355984745177731630679919471336891900177712461652124930326557533311255566987885146090775378979742527008056640625.