Scientific Notation
About this exercise
Writing very large or very small numbers compactly.
Example problems
A few of the problems this exercise asks. The printable worksheet holds ten fresh ones.
- Convert to a number: 5 × 10^3
- Write in scientific notation: 5,400,000
- Convert to a number: 1.5 × 10^4
- Write in scientific notation: 870,000
Try it yourself first — open a section below only if you get stuck.
How to solve it
Put one non-zero digit before the decimal point and record how many places the point moved as a power of ten. To expand it again, move the point back to the right by that many places.
Worked example
45000 becomes 4.5 times 10 to the power 4.
Common mistake
Getting the sign of the exponent wrong. Small numbers below one take a negative exponent.