Scientific Notation Basics
Scientific Notation is very useful when writing very large and very small numbers.

Examples of Big and Small Numbers

The mass of the Sun is
 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg
In Scientific Notation this is
2.00 × 10 30 kg
 The mass of an electron is
 0.000000000000000000000000000000911 kg
In Scientific Notation this is
  9.11 × 10 -31 kg

Multiplication and Division using Powers of Ten
Rules
 Examples
10 a × 10 b = 10 a + b

10 a ÷ 10 b = 10 a - b		 10 6 × 10 13 = 10 6 + 13 = 10 19

10 6 ÷ 10 13 = 10 6 - 13 = 10 -7		 10 8 × 10 -3 = 10 8 - 3 = 10 5

10 8 ÷ 10 -3 = 10 8 + 3 = 10 11

Multiplication and Division using Scientific Notation

( 3.00 × 10 7 ) × ( 2.00 × 10 4 ) = ( 3.00 × 2.00 ) × ( 10 7 × 10 4 ) = 6.00 × 10 11

( 3.00 × 10 7 ) รท ( 2.00 × 10 4 ) = ( 3.00 ÷ 2.00 ) × ( 10 7 ÷ 10 4 ) = 1.50 × 10 3

Calculators and computers represent Scientific Notation differently.