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:
97 x 97 x 97 x 97 x ... (for a total of 72 times) = 111574478897742849177136197511285442432661298716331706733204593731410300884557578113685150976499394580506142057779342816269560527771563600874241
Therefore, 97 to the power of 72 is 111574478897742849177136197511285442432661298716331706733204593731410300884557578113685150976499394580506142057779342816269560527771563600874241.

