what is the importance of scientific notation?

Question

what is the importance of scientific notation? in the field of physics

Answer 1

Scientific Notation is just a way of expressing VERY small numbers or VERY large numbers so we don't have to perform or write equations and figures like 187,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 x 4,500.
Instead, it's much simpler to write:
(1.87 x 10 to the 26th power)(4.5 x 10 to the third power)

Answer 2

Scientific notation allows us to get a handle on extremely large or extremely small numbers. This was very important prior to the introduction of electronic computers. At that time science math was accomplished on a slide rule. By it's very nature the slide rule was limited to two, three or four place accuracy. If you wanted to do any computations on a slide rule you were frequently limited to working with a small part of a large number. Since many of these large or small numbers have trailing or leading zeros, scientific notation could be used to eliminate those zeros. They were then packaged in a way that simple addition and subtraction could be used to simplify the computations.

The same principles apply to other measurements. Everything in the universe could be measured in inches. We don't do that, we have feet, yards, miles, AUs, Light Years, and even then the numbers can grow to some very unmanageable sizes. And don't forget, weight, and volume also have various size measurements. Can you imagine weighing a oil tanker in ounces or your medical prescription in tons. And of course, we could always measure the liquid contents of a tanker truck in teaspoons.

Scientific notation does exactly the same thing to numbers. It just doesn't limit the increments you can use. Any power of 10 is fair.

0.00000000000000000000000000000000000042

1780000000000000000000000000000000000000000

.293 X 10^-187

149 X 10^152

These are four numbers, two written normally and two with scientific notation. Note that while taking up less space and being easier to read the scientifically notated numbers actually represent smaller and larger numbers respectively than the normally written numbers.

Get the picture? Some numbers are just too large or too small to be conveniently manipulated. Scientific notation allows us to do something with those numbers without writing 50 or more zeros.

That’s about everything I know about scientific notation. I hope it helps.

Answer 3

scientific notation is a way of writing very large or very small numbers quickly. like, instead of writing 0.0000000000000285, you can write it in scientific notation; 2.85 * 10^14 [that's 10 to the 14th power]. or instead of 57,837,000,000,000,000, you can write 5.7837 *10^16.

hope that helped :]

Answer 4

Easy,

What is easier to write in an equation
0.000000000000000000000000000000000663 Js

or

6.63 * 10^-34 Js


For some reason Yahoo is cutting off the last fer digits, but I thin you get the idea.

Answer 5

the simple reason could be that, Scientific notation will make easy remembering and pronouncing

Answer 6

It's an easier way of expressing numbers with a large amount of zeros... it can make things quicker and easier sometimes.

Answer 7

Well, the numbers are either really really big in physics, or really really small, so which would you prefer to wade through?

.00000000000000000000000000000000000013

Or 13 E-33? (sorry if I miscounted)

Answer 8

it makes it easier to read the numbers because it's shorter

Answer 9

ist lkie lnagugae - if ew all use teh smae one we cna uendrsantd ecah ohetr

if we don't, we can't

its all just convention

Answer 10

you can take super large numbers like


123,456,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

and express them as 1.23456X10^39