Powers of Ten
Scientific Notation

Powers of Ten:

When adding, dividing, or multiplying "10's," its a simple manner of remembering the zeros.

For example:

Carry the one over, and add the zeros in a row.

When dealing with powers, that is some number raised to some number, that number is multiplied by itself:

When multiplying to ten-power values, all that is needed is to add the powers:

Any negative ten-power number is equal to one over that number:

When dividing ten-power numbers, all that is needed is to subtract the powers:

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Scientific Notation:

Scientific notation is the process of simplifying very large numbers. Image a value:

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Or this:

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 x 1,000,000,000,000,000

Such large numbers will make it easier to forget a zero. I don't know about you, but when I see so many zero's the value begins to look blurry! This is the reason for using Scientific Notation:

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 = 1.0 x 10²³

And when you are multiplying or dividing the values, the rules for powers or ten apply.

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