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:
99 x 99 x 99 x 99 x ... (for a total of 81 times) = 443047981626172804998484803642571691522984464735181382251745681283595864976236758590687365218760717437387026197558771935549358667533038371007211875833671287608099
Therefore, 99 to the power of 81 is 443047981626172804998484803642571691522984464735181382251745681283595864976236758590687365218760717437387026197558771935549358667533038371007211875833671287608099.