Scientific notation is usually for writing gigantically enormous numbers, or teensy miniscule numbers.
It is written as \(a \cdot 10^x\).
\(a\) can be a integer or decimal between 0 and 10 (non-inclusive).
Some examples:
\(31,469 = 3.1469 \cdot 10^{4}\)
\(142000000000000000 = 1.42 \cdot 10^{17}\)
If a number is less than 1, it is written as 10 ^ {negative number}.
\(0.02 = 2 \cdot 10^{-2}\)
\(0.00000000103 = 1.03 \cdot 10^{-11}\)
\(31.1 \cdot 10^{16}\) isn't scientific notation, as 31.1 can further be divided by 10 to become \(3.11 \cdot 10^{17}\),
This is a rather short summary of scientific notation, but I hope you can understand some part of it now.
Go to these links for more info!
https://www.khanacademy.org/math/pre-algebra/pre-algebra-exponents-radicals/pre-algebra-scientific-notation/v/scientific-notation
https://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/scientific-notation.html