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 77 times) = 220283745206834209685574827651674474546727651594820148136151336714444479870883419068313544653976114387050939360608789972022284750616448672959452536567
Therefore, 87 to the power of 77 is 220283745206834209685574827651674474546727651594820148136151336714444479870883419068313544653976114387050939360608789972022284750616448672959452536567.