MA, Stanford University
Teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area
Alissa is currently a teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area and Brightstorm users love her clear, concise explanations of tough concepts
Scientific notation is a shortcut way to write numbers that are either very large or very small. Proper scientific notation always begins with a number, "a", that is between 1 and 10. "a" is multiplied by 10 to some exponent. If the standard form is greater than ten, then the exponent on ten will be positive. Count how many spaces you have to move the decimal to get just one digit on the left of the decimal point, and this number will be your exponent on 10. If the standard form is less than one, count how many spaces you have to move the decimal to the right to get one digit to the left of the decimal point. This number will be the negative exponent on ten.
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