scientific notation

"Scientific notation" simplifies the expression of extremely large or small numbers, commonly used in scientific and engineering fields.

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Definition

(technical, academic)A way to write numbers as a product of a coefficient between 1 and 10 and a power of 10.

The distance between the Earth and the Sun is about 1.496 × 10⁸ kilometers in scientific notation.
In scientific notation, the number 0.00045 is written as 4.5 × 10⁻⁴.

(informal, practical)A method to express very large or very small numbers more compactly using exponents.

Using scientific notation, 7,500,000 becomes 7.5 × 10⁶.
The mass of an electron can be written as 9.109 × 10⁻³¹ kilograms in scientific notation.

Terms that have similar or relatively close meanings to "scientific notation":