Scientific notation example: 0.0000000003457

Express 0.0000000003457 in scientific notation. So let's just remind ourselves what it means to be in scientific notation. Scientific notation will be some number times some power of 10 where this number right here-- let me write it this way. It's going to be greater than or equal to 1, and it's going to be less than 10. So over here, what we want to put here is what that leading number is going to be. And in general, you're going to look for the first non-zero digit. And this is the number that you're going to want to start off with. This is the only number you're going to want to put ahead of or I guess to the left of the decimal point. So we could write 3.457, and it's going to be multiplied by 10 to something. Now let's think about what we're going to have to multiply it by. To go from 3.457 to this very, very small number, from 3.457, to get to this, you have to move the decimal to the left a bunch. You have to add a bunch of zeroes to the left of the 3. You have to keep moving the decimal over to the left. To do that, we're essentially making the number much much, much smaller. So we're not going to multiply it by a positive exponent of 10. We're going to multiply it times a negative exponent of 10. The equivalent is you're dividing by a positive exponent of 10. And so the best way to think about it, when you move an exponent one to the left, you're dividing by 10, which is equivalent to multiplying by 10 to the negative 1 power. Let me give you example here. So if I have 1 times 10 is clearly just equal to 10. 1 times 10 to the negative 1, that's equal to 1 times 1/10, which is equal to 1/10. 1 times-- and let me actually write a decimal, which is equal to 0-- let me actually-- I skipped a step right there. Let me add 1 times 10 to the 0, so we have something natural. So this is one times 10 to the first. One times 10 to the 0 is equal to 1 times 1, which is equal to 1. 1 times 10 to the negative 1 is equal to 1/10, which is equal to 0.1. If I do 1 times 10 to the negative 2, 10 to the negative 2 is 1 over 10 squared or 1/100. So this is going to be 1/100, which is 0.01. What's happening here? When I raise it to a negative 1 power, I've essentially moved the decimal from to the right of the 1 to the left of the 1. I've moved it from there to there. When I raise it to the negative 2, I moved it two over to the left. So how many times are we going to have to move it over to the left to get this number right over here? So let's think about how many zeroes we have. So we have to move it one time just to get in front of the 3. And then we have to move it that many more times to get all of the zeroes in there so that we have to move it one time to get the 3. So if we started here, we're going to move 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 times. So this is going to be 3.457 times 10 to the negative 10 power. Let me just rewrite it. So 3.457 times 10 to the negative 10 power. So in general, what you want to do is you want to find the first non-zero number here. Remember, you want a number here that's between 1 and 10. And it can be equal to 1, but it has to be less than 10. 3.457 definitely fits that bill. It's between 1 and 10. And then you just want to count the leading zeroes between the decimal and that number and include the number because that tells you how many times you have to shift the decimal over to actually get this number up here. And so we have to shift this decimal 10 times to the left to get this thing up here.