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A standardized way of writing very large numbers allows them to be easily sorted in increasing order, and one can get a good idea of how much larger a number is than another one. To compare numbers in scientific notation, say 5×10 4 and 2×10 5, compare the exponents first, in this case 5 > 4, so 2×10 5 > 5×10 4.
While base ten is normally used for scientific notation, powers of other bases can be used too, [25] base 2 being the next most commonly used one. For example, in base-2 scientific notation, the number 1001 b in binary (=9 d) is written as 1.001 b × 2 d 11 b or 1.001 b × 10 b 11 b using binary numbers (or shorter 1.001 × 10 11 if binary ...
It was first suggested that a googolplex should be 1, followed by writing zeros until you got tired. This is a description of what would happen if one tried to write a googolplex, but different people get tired at different times and it would never do to have Carnera a better mathematician than Dr. Einstein, simply because he had more endurance ...
In English, the prefix giga can be pronounced / ˈ ɡ ɪ ɡ ə / (a hard g as in giggle), or / ˈ dʒ ɪ ɡ ə / (a soft g as in gigantic, which shares giga 's Ancient Greek root). [5] A prominent example of this latter pronunciation is found in the pronunciation of gigawatts in the 1985 film Back to the Future.
One billion years may be called an eon in astronomy or geology. Previously in British English (but not in American English), the word "billion" referred exclusively to a million millions (1,000,000,000,000). However, this is not common anymore, and the word has been used to mean one thousand million (1,000,000,000) for several decades. [5]
Scientific notation is a way of writing numbers of very large and very small sizes compactly. A number written in scientific notation has a significand (sometime called a mantissa) multiplied by a power of ten. Sometimes written in the form: m × 10 n. Or more compactly as: 10 n. This is generally used to denote powers of 10.
For a number written in scientific notation, this logarithmic rounding scale requires rounding up to the next power of ten when the multiplier is greater than the square root of ten (about 3.162). For example, the nearest order of magnitude for 1.7 × 10 8 is 8, whereas the nearest order of magnitude for 3.7 × 10 8 is 9.
In scientific notation, it is written as 1 × 10 6 or 10 6. [9] Physical quantities can also be expressed using the SI prefix mega (M), when dealing with SI units; for example, 1 megawatt (1 MW) equals 1,000,000 watts .