Basics of BiologyBasic Chemistry For Biology |
What is scientific notation? |
Scientific notation allows scientists to manipulate very large or small numbers. It is based on the fact that all numbers can be expressed as the product of two numbers, one of which is the power of the number ten (written as the small superscript next to the number ten and called the exponent). Positive exponents indicate how many times the number must be multiplied by ten, while negative exponents indicate how many times a number must be divided by ten. The following lists how to interpret scientific notation:
1,000,000,000 = 1 × 109 |
0.000000001 = 1 × 10-9 |
100,000,000 = 1 × 108 |
0.00000001 = 1 × 10-8 |
10,000,000 = 1 × 107 |
0.0000001 = 1 × 10-7 |
1,000,000 = 1 × 106 |
0.000001 = 1 × 10-6 |
100,000 = 1 × 105 |
0.00001 = 1 × 10-5 |
10,000 = 1 × 104 |
0.0001 = 1 × 10-4 |
1,000 = 1 × 103 |
0.001 = 1 × 10-3 |
100 = 1 × 102 |
0.01 = 1 × 10-2 |
10 = 1 × 101 |
0.1 = 1 × 10-1 |
1 = 1 × 100 |
1 = 1 × 100 |