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Scientific Notation

  • Page ID
    29772
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    Scientific Notation

    Scientific notation is a shorthand for writing either very large numbers or small decimals with lots of digits.

    Example: 

    \(3.69\times 10^{-9}\) means 

    Arrow moving decimal of 3.69 9 places left

    1. First write 3.69
    2. Move the decimal 9 places left because of \(10^{-9}\).  Then fill in the missing places with zeros.

    Example:

    \(3.69\times 10^{9}\ means 

    Arrow moving decimal of 3.69 9 places right

    1. First write 3.69
    2. Move the decimal 9 places right because of \(10^{9}\).  Then fill in the missing places with zeros.

    Example:

    \(0.000014\) means \(1.4 \times 10^{-5}\)

    1. Move the decimal right the given number of necessary places.
    2. This is 5 places to the right.  So the number is \(1.4 \times 10^{-5}\)

    Example:

    \(36924\) means \(3.6924 \times 10^{4}\)

    1. Move the decimal left the given number of necessary places.
    2. This is 4 places to the left.  So the number is \(3.6924 \times 10^{4}\)

    This page titled Scientific Notation is shared under a CC BY license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Larry Green.

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