Saya: what is scientific notation? and whats the easiest way to remember it?
Good question Saya,
Scientific notation is a way of writing very big or very small numbers so that they are easier to make sense of.
eg
1) the distance of the Sun to Neptune (the outer most planet in our solar system ) is
4503000000km this is more easy to make sense of if it is written as 4.503 x 10
9 km
I moved the point so that there is exactly 1 non zero digit in front of the decimal point.
The power (exponent) is nine because the decimal place moved from the very end to between the 4 and 5. It moved 9 places.
The nine is positive because the number is big.
It might not seem easier to you because you are not used to it yet, but to me the one in scientific notation is much more easily understood.
2) The width of a human hair is about 0.000018m
To write this in scientifc notation you start by putting just one digit in front of the decimal point, that is 1.8
then, since it is a tiny number, less than 1, the exponent will be negative
The decimal point has moved 5 places, to see this more clearly write down 0.000018 then starting at the decimal point, put loops over each digit until you get the new spot for the decimal point, if you have understood what I am talking about there will be 5 loops.
So in scientific notation
0.000018 = 1.8 x 10
-5 This is a web page that you should look at. It is interactive, so you can answer questions.
http://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/scientific-notation.html
Happy calculations
+118654 
