2. Scientific Notation
• 25,300,000,000,000 miles
– The distance from earth to the closest star outside
our solar system.
• 0.0000000203 second
– The time it takes the light to travel from one side
of the room to the other side.
3. Scientific Notation
• A way to write very small or very large number using
the power of 10.
• The general form of the notation is:
• In the normalized form, a is at least 1 but less than 10
• Converting a number in and out of scientific notation is
essentially shifting the decimal point left or right.
• When converting into scientific notation, move the
decimal point such that 1 <= a < 10. The number of
number of places moved is the power of ten and the
direction indicates the sign (left is positive, right is
negative).
• When converting out of scientific notation. If the power
of 10 is positive, move the decimal point right, if it is
negative move the decimal point left.
5. Scientific Notation
• In cases where it is not convenient to display the
power of 10 with a superscript an "E" or "e" is used
to separate the number from the power of 10.
• Many times a "+" is included for positive powers.
• Examples:
6.0221415E+23
6.0221415e23
1.234E-5
-2.56E+16
