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:
87 x 87 x 87 x 87 x ... (for a total of 59 times) = 2701692421182583252157612500707899108631404055386867115338832464689874182960452428015820427860986676782501727065223
Therefore, 87 to the power of 59 is 2701692421182583252157612500707899108631404055386867115338832464689874182960452428015820427860986676782501727065223.