Scientific Notation ( An introduction )

Bill Gates has a net worth of around 93,000,000,000 dollars.
This is a large number to write.
A nanometer is 1/ billionth of a meter which is written as 0.000000001 m

Both of these numbers can be written using scientific notation.
Bill Gates net worth could be written as 9.3 x 10^10
A nanometer can be written as 1.0 x 10^-9
Lets go over the basics of scientific notation

9.3 x 10^8
The coefficient must be between 1 and 10
The exponent should be an integer and can be positive of negative

If you have to move the decimal to the left , the exponent will be positive
If you have to move the decimal to the right the exponent will be negative

530,000 5.3×10^5
First example. In this example we do not have a decimal so you can assume it is after the last zero. The coefficient must be between 1 and 10 so we need to move the decimal five places to the left because 5.3 is between 1 and 10
The exponent will be positive so it will be written as 5.3 x 10 5

.00078 x 10^-4

In this example in order for the coefficient to be between 1 and 10 we need to move the decimal four places to the right 7.8 is between 1 and 10
We need to move the decimal to the right so the exponent will be negative

The scientific notation will equal 7.8 x 10^ -4