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Scientific Notation. By Jenny Erickson. What is scientific Notation?. Scientific notation is a way of expressing really big numbers or really small numbers. It is most often used in “scientific” calculations where the analysis must be very precise. Why use scientific notation?.
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Scientific Notation By Jenny Erickson
What is scientific Notation? • Scientific notation is a way of expressing really big numbers or really small numbers. • It is most often used in “scientific” calculations where the analysis must be very precise.
Why use scientific notation? • For very large and very small numbers, these numbers can be converted into scientific notation to express them in a more concise form. • Numbers expressed in scientific notation can be used in a computation with far greater ease.
Scientific notation consists of two parts: • A number between 1 and 10 • A power of 10 N x 10x Are the following in scientific notation?
To change standard form to scientific notation… • Place the decimal point so that there is one non-zero digit to the left of the decimal point. • Count the number of decimal places the decimal point has “moved” from the original number. This will be the exponent on the 10.
Continued… • If the original number was less than 1, then the exponent is negative. If the original number was greater than 1, then the exponent is positive.
Example 1 • Given: 289,800,000 • Use: 2.898 (moved 8 places) • Answer: 2.898 x 108
Example 2 • Given: 0.000567 • Use: 5.67 (moved 4 places) • Answer: 5.67 x 10-4
Practice • Use the link below to practice converting standard form to scientific notation. • Converting to Scientific Notation
To change scientific notation to standard form… • Simply move the decimal point to the right for positive exponent 10. • Move the decimal point to the left for negative exponent 10. (Use zeros to fill in places.)
Example 3 • Given: 5.093 x 106 • Answer: 5,093,000 (moved 6 places to the right)
Example 4 • Given: 1.976 x 10-4 • Answer: 0.0001976 (moved 4 places to the left)
Practice • Use the link below to practice converting scientific notation to standard form. • Converting to Standard Form
Even More Practice • Below is a list of links to games and activities all having to do with scientific notation. • http://www.aaamath.com/dec71i-dec2sci.html • http://janus.astro.umd.edu/cgi-bin/astro/scinote.pl • http://www.sciencejoywagon.com/physicszone/lesson/00genral/dectosci.htm
Now take the quiz to test your scientific notation skills! • Click on the link below to take the quiz and then use the answer key for the correct answers. • Quiz • Answers