Scientific Notation Number expressed as: Product of a number between 1 and 10 AND a power of 10 5.63 x 104, meaning 5.63 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 or 5.63 x 10,000 or 56,300 ALWAYS have only ONE nonzero digit to the left of the decimal point ONLY significant numbers are used in the first number First number can be positive or negative Power of 10 can be positive or negative 1

When to Use Scientific Notation Astronomically Large Numbers mass of planets, distance between stars, number of atoms Infinitesimally Small Numbers size of atoms, protons, electrons, distance between atoms A number with “ambiguous” zeros 59,000 has two sig. figs. 5.9 x 104 2

Converting From Standard to Scientific Notation Move decimal until it is behind the first sig fig Power of 10 is the # of spaces the decimal moved Decimal moves to the left, the exponent is positive Decimal moves to the right, the exponent is negative 428.5  4.285 x 102 (decimal moves 2 spots left) 0.0004285  4.285 x 10-4 (decimal moves 4 spots right) 3

Online Resources Nice web page on metric system Practice converting to scientific notation 4