Question

What is an example of a scientific notation?

Answer 1

Numbers in scientific notation look like
`1.234*10^6` or `1.234*10^-6`

As you may know
`10^6=1000000` = one million and
`10^-6=0.000001` = one millionth
so the two examples above would be:
`1234000` and `0.000001234`

Scientific notation is used when really great or really small numbers are involved. In stead of writing out all these zeroes, when you can easily make a mistake in counting.
You wouldn't want to write out the number of molecules in a mole:
`N=6.02*10^23`, or would you?

The rule is that (in almost all cases, except sometimes in tables ) the `10^"power"` is chosen so that the number before the power turns out to be between `1` and `9.99...`
So you wouldn't write the first example as `1234*10^3`