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 89 times) = 41420323172887136317090775242992936475770796498047502858229021582473014613526597928360296793410319531028123733525957305462754476185238404911054531704443764438196755277867927
Therefore, 87 to the power of 89 is 41420323172887136317090775242992936475770796498047502858229021582473014613526597928360296793410319531028123733525957305462754476185238404911054531704443764438196755277867927.

