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 87 times) = 723513330298079423847813053757386980630894402504192331619131632274437691305545334768738196637665512111222836797145144774825076434965342997429615934379398822784423828125
Therefore, 85 to the power of 87 is 723513330298079423847813053757386980630894402504192331619131632274437691305545334768738196637665512111222836797145144774825076434965342997429615934379398822784423828125.