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 99 times) = 327602097054153532522254514851864886153582906089432684513659791925428717943926273696289362748481077055860233048952970830841120739001659069265136310007423455804511005051711628145075365416534016
Therefore, 86 to the power of 99 is 327602097054153532522254514851864886153582906089432684513659791925428717943926273696289362748481077055860233048952970830841120739001659069265136310007423455804511005051711628145075365416534016.