University of Michigan
Runs his own tutoring company
Carl taught upper-level math in several schools and currently runs his own tutoring company. He bets that no one can beat his love for intensive outdoor activities!
Rewriting a number in standard notation into scientific notation; so what we want to do when we are writing a number in scientific notation is first figure out where our decimal should go. Remember that the first term in our scientific notation has to be between 1 and 10, absolute value it has to be between 1 and 10.
So we're looking at our first couple of numbers, I realize that my decimal place has to go between the 1 and the 4. So then all we want to do is count the number of decimal places that we have to move our decimal. Right now it's right here so I move it one spot 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, so I know that I have 1.47 times 10 to the 7th and I know it's a +7 because I have a big number here, -7's are going to move it to a smaller decimal.
Same idea for this one here when we're dealing with a decimal. The first thing is we want to figure out where our decimal spot should go in our scientific notation form, giving us a number between 1 and 10 and we have to go between the 9 and then count the number of spots we need to move our decimal 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, so therefore I know I have 8.92 times 10 and this time I am going to a smaller decimal, so therefore I need my exponent to be negative.
Making a big number you have a positive exponent, small decimal you have a negative exponent and then just making sure your decimal is in the appropriate spot.
