WORKSHEET 3

Scientific Notation: Conventional to Scientific Notation

Main Concepts/Ideas:
To facilitate the recording and the handling of very large and very small quantities, scientists
often use scientific notation. Scientific notation expresses a number as a product of a number and a
multiple of 10. The multiples of 10 are often expressed using exponents.

Standard scientific notation is expressed as a x 10 n where the exponent n indicates the number
of times the decimal point is moved so that 9 ≥ a ≥1 . An important rule in writing scientific notation is:
“for each decimal place the decimal point is moved to the left, 1 is added to the exponent of 10. For
each movement to the right, 1 is subtracted from the exponent.”

As shown in the table of Worksheet 2 (Prefixes), numbers raised to negative exponents are less
than one, while those raised to positive exponents are greater than 1. Thus:

−1 1 1
a =a
a = 1 2
a a =a × a
−2 1 n
a =a × a ×a × … a
a = 2
a
1 1
a−n= n =
a a × a× a × … a

−1 1 1 101=10
10 = 1 = =0.1 2
10 =10 × 10
10 10 3
−2 1 1 1 10 =10 × 10× 10
10 = 2 = = =0.01
10 10 ×10 100
−3 1 1
10 = 3 = =0.001
10 10 ×10 ×10

Detailed Examples:
 123,000,000 (the decimal point is located after the last zero)

123 x 106 = 123 x 100,000 = 123,000,000 (moving the decimal point 6 places to the left
places it after “3” and adds “6” to the
exponent of 10)

1.23 x 108 = 1.23 x 100,000,000 = 123,000,00 (To express the number in standard scientific
notation form, the decimal point is moved an
additional 2 places to the left. This adds “2” in
the exponent of 10)

 0.0005 = 5 x 10-4 = 5 x 0.0001 (The decimal point is moved 4 times to the right
to express the number in standard scientific
notation form. Since the movement is to the
right, the sign of the exponent is negative.

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 WORKSHEET 3

Exercises:
Express each number in its standard scientific notation form.
Standard Scientific Notation Form

730,000,000,000

0.000,000,000,000 36

54 x 1013

0.786 x 1012

630 x 10-5

0.00032 x 10-6

Reflection/Summary of Learning: