Scientific Notation

Notes for page 35.

Scientists work with very large and very small numbers. writing these nubmers over and over gets repetitive, boring and time consuming. Therefore, scientists developed amn easier way to write these numbers.

Scientific notation is based on multples of ten.
- positive exponents are multpilying by ten
   * the number gets larger
   * The deciman moves to the right
- negative exponents are dividing by ten
  * the number gets smaller
  * The decimal moves to the left

Integrating Significant Figures
- the decimal point always goes behind the first non-zero
- only include the significant figures when converting to scientific notation
- once in scientific notation, only the numbers are significant (NOT the "x 10")