Scientific notation

An easy method of writing a very large or small number. A scientific notation is a decimal number between 1 and 10 multiplied by the power of 10. For example, 987,000,000 could be written in scientific notation as 9.87 * 108, 9.87 * 10^8, or 9.87+E8

To convert a real number into a scientific notation, follow the below steps.

  1. Place a decimal point after the first digit. If we were using the same number we used above, the decimal point would be placed after the nine.
  2. Complete the remainder of the number excluding the trailing 0's. So our number would be 9.87, this number is also known as the coefficient.
  3. To find the exponent, count all the digits up to the decimal point. Because our number was nine digits long, this would mean we have an exponent of eight.

To convert a scientific notation into a real number, follow the below steps.

  1. Assuming our scientific notation was 8.01+E5.
  2. Calculate 8.01 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 10
  3. The answer for this scientific notation should be 801000.

Also see: Number