Compare Scientific Notation and Standard Numbers

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Scientific Notation: Learn

Two numbers written in scientific notation can be compared. The number with the larger power of 10 is greater than the number with the smaller power of 10. If the powers of ten are the same then the number with the larger factor is the larger number.

For example, 3.4x10⁷ is greater than 3.4x10⁴ (It might be a little easier to see if we convert them to standard form: 34,000,000 and 34,000, but it's much faster to simply look at the exponents).

Another example: The number 3.4x10⁷ is greater than 3.1x10⁷. (Since the exponents are the same, we must compare 3.4 > 3.1)

Numbers written in standard form can be compared to numbers written in scientific notation by converting one number to the other format.

For example, to compare 3.4x10⁷ and 4,500,000 you have two good options:

You could convert 3.4x10⁷ to 34,000,000 and then determine that it is greater than 4,500,000.

Or, you could convert 4,500,000 to 4.5x10⁶ and see that it has the smaller exponent, so it must be less than 3.4x10⁷.

Compare Scientific Notation: Practice

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