Large Numbers - Using Scientific Notation To Handle Large and Small Numbers

Using Scientific Notation To Handle Large and Small Numbers

See also: scientific notation, logarithmic scale, and orders of magnitude

Scientific notation was created to handle the wide range of values which occur in scientific study. 1.0 × 109, for example, means one billion, a 1 followed by nine zeros: 1 000 000 000, and 1.0 × 10−9 means one billionth, or 0.000 000 001. Writing 109 instead of nine zeros saves readers the effort and hazard of counting a long series of zeros to see how large the number is.

Read more about this topic:  Large Numbers

Famous quotes containing the words scientific, handle, large, small and/or numbers:

    “The teacher must derive not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena. In our system, she must become a passive, much more than an active, influence, and her passivity shall be composed of anxious scientific curiosity and of absolute respect for the phenomenon which she wishes to observe. The teacher must understand and feel her position of observer: the activity must lie in the phenomenon.”
    —Maria Montessori (1870–1952)

    “English literature is a kind of training in social ethics.... English trains you to handle a body of information in a way that is conducive to action.”
    —Marilyn Butler (b. 1937)

    “It is surprising on stepping ashore anywhere into this unbroken wilderness to see so often, at least within a few rods of the river, the marks of an axe, made by lumberers who have either camped here or driven logs past in previous springs. You will see perchance where, going on the same errand that you do, they have cut large chips from a tall white pine stump for their fire.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “When any one of our relations was found to be a person of a very bad character, a troublesome guest, or one we desired to get rid of, upon his leaving my house I ever took care to lend him a riding-coat, or a pair of boots, or sometimes a horse of small value, and I always had the satisfaction of finding he never came back to return them.”
    —Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774)

    “Publishers are notoriously slothful about numbers, unless they’re attached to dollar signs—unlike journalists, quarterbacks, and felony criminal defendents who tend to be keenly aware of numbers at all times.”
    —Hunter S. Thompson (b. 1939)