This isn't urgent, but I would like to know.

Uh so I know that it is used with powers, but I don't know how how to solve it.

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