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 78 times) = 92938417386361263051751996307474775087144693064927795793769879337605743650533068016496850101550762865678878049467348947148069113331598717133455262961133889
Therefore, 97 to the power of 78 is 92938417386361263051751996307474775087144693064927795793769879337605743650533068016496850101550762865678878049467348947148069113331598717133455262961133889.