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 71 times) = 508003770745998293006424773245232595129832937006155796621468301323543097339202367968213994850975779559483208775415858907113276627056097063
Therefore, 87 to the power of 71 is 508003770745998293006424773245232595129832937006155796621468301323543097339202367968213994850975779559483208775415858907113276627056097063.

