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)

    “She, too, would now swim down the river of matrimony with a beautiful name, and a handle to it, as the owner of a fine family property. Women’s rights was an excellent doctrine to preach, but for practice could not stand the strain of such temptation.”
    —Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)

    “Frequently also some fair-weather finery ripped off a vessel by a storm near the coast was nailed up against an outhouse. I saw fastened to a shed near the lighthouse a long new sign with the words “ANGLO SAXON” on it in large gilt letters, as if it were a useless part which the ship could afford to lose, or which the sailors had discharged at the same time with the pilot. But it interested somewhat as if it had been a part of the Argo, clipped off in passing through the Symplegades.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “Enthusiasm. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.”
    —Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)

    “Old age equalizes—we are aware that what is happening to us has happened to untold numbers from the beginning of time. When we are young we act as if we were the first young people in the world.”
    —Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)