The display "1.7 8 E12" on Charlie's calculator is a representation of a number in scientific notation. The "E" stands for "exponent," which indicates that the number should be multiplied by 10 raised to the power of the number following the "E."
In this case, "1.7 8" is likely meant to represent the number 1.78 (assuming there is a space and it is not intended to split 1.78). Thus, "1.78 E12" can be interpreted as:
\[ 1.78 \times 10^{12} \]
This means that the product of the two large numbers Charlie calculated is \( 1.78 \) multiplied by \( 10^{12} \). In standard decimal form, this would be written as:
\[ 1.78 \times 10^{12} = 1,780,000,000,000 \]
So, Charlie's calculator is indicating that the product of the two large numbers is 1.78 trillion.
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