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Scientific Notations

This topic deals with expressing numbers in scientific notation and in standard form.

Topic: Numbers in Scientific Notation

  • A number written in scientific notation has two numbers that are multiplied.

    a) The first number is greater than or equal to 1 and less than 10.
    b) The second number is a power of 10 in scientific notation

  • To write a number in scientific notation:

    a) For the first number: Put the decimal after the first digit and drop the zeros.

    b) For the second number (which is the exponent of 10): Find the power of 10 by counting the number of places from the decimal point to the end of the number

Topic: Numbers in standard form

  • To write a number in the standard form, look at the power of 10 and move the decimal point that number of places (that is the power of 10) to the right.
    For e.g. For the number 2.1 x 105 move the decimal point 5 places to the right

  • Use zeros as placeholders.
    E.g. 2.1 x 105 will be written as 210000

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