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 84 times) = 8310309911292440722199961066560610860765338756786158085163422712339011698616806862368988997658323921760719088837788687440774689814347193976252877561935727237260961
Therefore, 87 to the power of 84 is 8310309911292440722199961066560610860765338756786158085163422712339011698616806862368988997658323921760719088837788687440774689814347193976252877561935727237260961.

