With this program you can practice converting between
scientific notation and normal numbers.
Examples:
Convert from Scientific Notation to Real Number:
5.14 x 105 = 514000.0
Scientific notation consists of a coefficient (here 5.14) multiplied
by 10 raised to an exponent (here 5). To convert to a real
number, start with the base and multiply by 5 tens like this:
5.14 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 = 514000.0. Multiplying by tens is easy:
one simply moves the decimal point in the base (5.14) 5 places to the
right, adding extra zeroes as needed.
Convert from Real Number to Scientific Notation:
0.000345 = 3.45 x 10-4
Here we wish to write the number 0.000345 as a
coefficient times 10 raised to an exponent. To convert to
scientific notation, start by moving the decimal place in the number
until you have a number between 1 and 10; here it is 3.45. The number
of places to the left that you had to move the decimal point
is the exponent. Here, we had to move the decimal 4 places to the
right, so the exponent is -4.
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