Question

What is scientific notation? How would you solve it?

Answer 1

See explanation.

Explanation:

A number written in the scientific notation is written as:

`Axx10^N`

where `A` is a real number and `1<=A<10` and `N` is an integer number.

This notation allows to write very small or very large numbers in a shorter form.

Examples:

1. The speed of light `300,000,000m/s` can be written using scientiffic notation as `3xx10^8m/s`

2. A small number like `0.00000000025` can be written as: `2.5xx10^{-10}`

From the examples you can see that if the number is less than one then the exponent of `10` is negative and if the number is greater than one then the exponent is positive.