your brother saide To divide 3.3×104 by 5.5×107, simply divide the numerical values and subtract the exponents:

Question

3.3×104 / 5.5×107 = (3.3 / 5.5) × (10^4 / 10^7) = 0.6 × 10^-3

The answer is 0.6×10^-3, which can be written as 6×10^-4. which is it 0.6x10^-3 or 6x10^-4

up-vote
5
down-vote
0

Answer 1

Both representations are mathematically correct and equivalent:

1. \( 0.6 \times 10^{-3} \)
2. \( 6 \times 10^{-4} \)

To see why they are equivalent, you can express \( 0.6 \) in terms of \( 6 \):

\[ 0.6 \times 10^{-3} = \frac{6}{10} \times 10^{-3} = 6 \times 10^{-4} \]

So, you can use either representation, but \( 6 \times 10^{-4} \) is generally preferred in scientific notation because it adheres to the convention of having a leading digit that is non-zero.