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:
88 x 88 x 88 x 88 x ... (for a total of 72 times) = 100635774849169749924459019322538408697419071408328464152683736409842224350178003597255841038358490590658455045520081479470213392068620845056
Therefore, 88 to the power of 72 is 100635774849169749924459019322538408697419071408328464152683736409842224350178003597255841038358490590658455045520081479470213392068620845056.