Scientific Notation

In this section, we learn about Scientific Notation. Scientific notation is a method used to conveniently write really small or really large numbers. It is an immediate application of a few rules that we have learned up to this point. For scientific notation, we begin by placing the decimal point immediately after the first non-zero digit in the number. Next, we count the number of places the decimal point was moved. This will be the absolute value for our exponent. The exponent will be positive if the original number is larger than the new number formed and negative if the original number is smaller than the new number formed. If you were working with a negative number, you would think about its absolute value to apply this rule. Lastly, we set up our number in scientific notation. We will also learn how to perform operations such as multiplication and division with numbers that are in scientific notation.