Understanding Decimal to Scientific Notation Conversion
What is Scientific Notation?
Scientific notation is a way of expressing numbers that are too large or too small to be conveniently written in decimal form. It is widely used in science, engineering, and mathematics.
Formula for Scientific Notation
The general form of scientific notation is:
Where:
is a number greater than or equal to 1 and less than 10
is an integer (positive, negative, or zero)
Converting Decimal to Scientific Notation
To convert a decimal to scientific notation, follow these steps:
Move the decimal point to the right of the first non-zero digit.
Count the number of places the decimal point was moved.
Write the number in the form , where is the number with the decimal point after the first digit, and is the number of places the decimal point was moved.
Calculation Steps
Let's convert 123456.789 to scientific notation:
Move the decimal point 5 places to the left:
1.23456789 × 10^5
Round to the desired number of decimal places (let's say 2):
1.23 × 10^5
Example with Visual Representation
Let's visualize 123456.789 in scientific notation:
This diagram shows 123456.789 expressed in scientific notation as 1.23 × 10^5.
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