Hi, I really need some help with scientific notation. How do I convert large numbers like 108,000,000 and other numbers that are even larger than this to scientific notation? This is for a math project and even though I learned about this, it's still hard for me to understand this. Somebody please help me! :/

1 answer

starting at the decimal point (or the rightmost digit if there is none), count how many places left you have to move the point till the number is between 1 and 10 (less than 10).

Note that 10^0 = 1

108,000,000 = 108,000,000 x 10^0
108,000 x 10^3
108 x 10^6
10.8 x 10^7
1.08 x 10^8

That is the scientific notation.

42376.3 = 4.23763 x 10^4
since we had to move the decimal point 4 places to the left to make the multiplier less than 10.

This works the other way as well, using negative exponents.

0.0023 = 2.3 x 10^-3
because we moved 3 places to the right.