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:
86 x 86 x 86 x 86 x ... (for a total of 87 times) = 2001544537082929643238880622752521485562778155931422875224390247427706436053281254506224860559411199034068497124297229574474330865134361615204451719475509780899216490496
Therefore, 86 to the power of 87 is 2001544537082929643238880622752521485562778155931422875224390247427706436053281254506224860559411199034068497124297229574474330865134361615204451719475509780899216490496.