# How do you express 1,902,500,000 in scientific notation?

Jan 15, 2018

We need to move the decimal point 9 places to the left so the exponent for the 10s term will be positive:

$1 , 902 , 500 , 000 = 1.9025 \times {10}^{9}$

Jan 15, 2018

$1.902500000 \times {10}^{9}$

#### Explanation:

Demonstrating what is happening in stages until we end up at the target format.

Note that ${10}^{0} = 1$ so as an example: $3 \times {10}^{0} = 3 \times 1 = 3$

$1 , 902 , 500 , 000 \textcolor{w h i t e}{\text{d") ->color(white)("d}} \textcolor{g r e e n}{1902500000 \textcolor{red}{}} \times {10}^{0}$

$\textcolor{g r e e n}{1902500000 \textcolor{red}{}} \times {10}^{0}$

$\textcolor{g r e e n}{190250000 \textcolor{red}{.0}} \times {10}^{1}$

$\textcolor{g r e e n}{19025000 \textcolor{red}{.00}} \times {10}^{2}$

$\textcolor{g r e e n}{1902500 \textcolor{red}{.000}} \times {10}^{3}$

$\textcolor{g r e e n}{190250 \textcolor{red}{.0000}} \times {10}^{4}$

$\textcolor{g r e e n}{19025 \textcolor{red}{.00000}} \times {10}^{5}$

$\textcolor{g r e e n}{1902 \textcolor{red}{.500000}} \times {10}^{6}$

$\textcolor{g r e e n}{190 \textcolor{red}{.2500000}} \times {10}^{7}$

$\textcolor{g r e e n}{19 \textcolor{red}{.02500000}} \times {10}^{8}$

$\textcolor{g r e e n}{1 \textcolor{red}{.902500000}} \times {10}^{9} \textcolor{b l u e}{\leftarrow \text{ The target format}}$