what does "write 81 as a product of 3's" mean? what do i do?

3 to the 4th power, which can be written 3^4 or 3x3x3x3, equals 81.

To write 81 as a product of 3's means expressing 81 as the result of multiplying several factors of 3 together. In other words, we want to find the power of 3 that equals 81.

To find this, we can start by dividing 81 by 3 repeatedly until we can no longer divide evenly. This will give us the factors of 3 that, when multiplied together, equal 81.

Let's start with 81 and divide it by 3:

81 ÷ 3 = 27

Since 27 can still be divided evenly by 3, let's continue:

27 ÷ 3 = 9

Next, let's divide 9 by 3:

9 ÷ 3 = 3

Now, we have reached a point where we can no longer divide evenly.

Therefore, we can write 81 as a product of 3's as:

3 x 3 x 3 x 3 = 81

Alternatively, we can write it using exponent notation as:

3^4 = 81

In either case, we have found that 81 can be expressed as a product of 3's.