Scientific Notation: An Easy Way to Read Large or Small Numbers

Have you ever wondered how scientists deal with really large or really small numbers? They put it into a scientific notation format. This is done by expressing numbers using powers of 10.

Here's how to write your very own scientifically notated number:

Let's say you have a number like 16 000 000.

First place the decimal number after the first non-zero digit. Here, we would get 1.6

*The rule is that the number before the decimal must be between 1 and 10.*

Next, you would multiply the number, 1.6, to a power of 10, depending on how big the number is. In this case, we would have to multiply by 10^7.

So in the end, we get 1.6 X 10^7. That is now a scientifically notated number.

Here is a very good video that further explains scientific notation.





For even more help, here are some helpful links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_notation 
http://staff.argyll.epsb.ca/jreed/math7/strand1/1103.htm


Quiz yourself here!
http://janus.astro.umd.edu/cgi-bin/astro/scinote.pl

Unitary Rates

How do we convert 1 m^2 into cm^2? It's easy to convert 1 m into 100 cm, but what if it was a square metre?

We know that 1 m = 100 cm

So then 1 m^2 = ? cm^2?

First, we realize that we are squaring the left side of the equation. In mathematics, we learn that when we do something to one side of an equation, we must do the same to the other side, so we would square 100 cm.

(100 cm)^2:

This will equal 10000 cm^2. So 1 m^2 = 10000 cm^2

If we want to convert 1 km^3 into m^3, first we have to realize that 1 km = 1000 m. If we cube the "km" side, then we also have to cube the "m" side, which means that 1 km^3 = (1000 m)^3 

The answer is 100 000 000 m^3.