Question

Will the standard form 3.2 × 10–4 be more or less than 1? Explain what effect the negative exponent has.

Answer 1

The standard form 3.2 × 10–4 will be less than 1. The negative exponent in the scientific notation means that the number is being divided by a power of 10. In this case, 10 raised to the power of -4 means dividing 1 by 10 raised to the power of 4, which is 10,000. So, 3.2 × 10–4 is equal to 3.2 divided by 10,000, which is 0.00032. This is a very small number compared to 1.