Question

How do you convert 0.119 into scientific form?

Answer 1

To bring `0.119` into the range `[1,10)`, you need to multiply it by `10` once.

So in scientific form: `0.119 = 1.19 xx 10^(-1)`

Explanation:

Scientific form expresses a number as a mantissa in the range `[1, 10)` multiplied by an integer power of `10`.

In our example, `0.119 < 1`, so will have a negative exponent (power of `10`).

To bring `0.119` into the range `[1, 10)`, we need to multiply it by `10^1`, shifting it one place to the left to get `1.19`. To compensate for the fact that we have multiplied it by `10^1` we use an exponent of `-1` to get:

`0.119 = 1.19 xx 10^(-1)`