How is scientific notation used in physics?

1 Answer
Meave60
Mar 26, 2015

Scientific notation is used in Physics to more easily write and work with very large numbers or very small numbers.

For example, one light year in standard notation is #9 460 000 000 000 000 "m"#, but in scientific notation, it is #9.46xx10^(15) "m"#.

The mass of an electron is #9.109xx10^(-31) "kg"# in scientific notation, but in standard form it is #0.000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 9109 "kg"#.

So you can see, using scientific notation makes it easier to write and work with very large and very small numbers.

Source: http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae502.cfm
Source: http://education.jlab.org/qa/particlemass_02.html

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