Converting Numbers to Scientific Notation

Scientific notation is used to express very large or very small numbers. A number in scientific notation is written as the product of a number (integer or decimal) and a power of 10. This number is always 1 or more and less than 10.

For example, there are approximately 6,000,000,000 humans on earth. This number could be written in scientific notation as 6x109. The number 6,000,000,000 is equivalent to 6*1,000,000,000. The number 1,000,000,000 is equivalent to 109 or 10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10.

NumberScientific Notation?Product ofPlaces after 1st Digit
11.0x10010 places
101.0x1011*101 places
1001.0x1021*10*102 places
1,0001.0x1031*10*10*103 places
10,0001.0x1041*10*10*10*104 places
100,0001.0x1051*10*10*10*10*105 places
1,000,0001.0x1061*10*10*10*10*10*106 places

A number can be converted to scientific notation by increasing the power of ten by one for each place the decimal point is moved to the left. In the example above, the decimal point was moved 9 places to the left to form a number more than 1 and less than 10.

Scientific notation numbers may be written in different forms. The number 6x109 could also be written as 6e+9. The +9 indicates that the decimal point would be moved 9 places to the right to write the number in standard form.







Write the number in scientific notation.

 =   x10