What you need to know
Things to remember:
We can count how many times the decimal place has moved to work out the power.
When we have a number between 0 and 1, the power will be negative when converting to standard form.
The Standard form is typically used for extremely large or extremely small numbers, such as measuring the speed of light or the size of bacteria. Start form numbers are written like this:
a\times10^n
a×10
n
Where aa is any number between 1 and 10, but not including 10, and nn is a positive or negative integer.
Write 6540065400 in standard form
We will do this in 4 steps.
Step 1: If you have a whole number, but a decimal point and 0 on the end.
65400.0
Step 2: Put a second decimal point in on the right of the first non-zero number.
6.5400.0
Step 3: Count how many times the first decimal place “moved” and in which direction.
Here, the decimal place moved 4 times to the left.
Step 4: Write in standard form (a\times10^na×10
n
)
aa will be a decimal number in Step 2, without the 0s.
nn is the number found in Step 3.
If the decimal moved left nn is positive.
If the decimal moved right nn is negative.
65400=6.54\times10^4
65400=6.54×10
4
We can do the same steps for writings numbers less than 1, but this time the power will be negative.
Write 0.000045620.00004562 in standard form
Step 1: If you have a whole number, but a decimal point and 0 on the end.
Our number isn’t a whole number.
Step 2: Put a second decimal point in on the right of the first non-zero number.
0.00004.562
Step 3: Count how many times the first decimal place “moved” and in which direction.
Here, the decimal place moved 5 times to the right.
Step 4: Write in standard form (a\times10^na×10
n
)
aa will be a decimal number in Step 2, without the 0s.
nn is the number found in Step 3.
If the decimal moved left nn is positive.
If the decimal moved right nn is negative.
0.00004562=4.562\times10^{-5}
0.00004562=4.562×10
−5
