Scientific Notation

Dear Ayla,

Today, while walking home from school, I got drenched in the rain. I can't believe it! My book bag wasn't zipped all the way, and my papers got soaked. I can't read our homework assignment. Can you send it to me?

Thank you so much!

Jenny

This message is too long to send in a text. Revise it to make it shorter.

We're going to discuss what you did to shorten the message. 

What are examples of other words, phrases, or names that are shortened? 

 Imagine having to write out the numbers we saw in the powers of ten video? 

 

• The population of the world is about 7,117,000,000.

• The distance from Earth to the Sun is about 92,960,000 miles.

• The human body contains approximately 60,000,000,000,000 to 90,000,000,000,000 cells.

• The mass of a particle of dust is 0.000000000753 kg.

• The length of the shortest wavelength of visible light (violet) is 0.0000004 meters.

Write these out in  written form, expanded form, and expanded form with powers of 10. 

There is an easier way to write and say these numbers. Scientific notation is a system developed by scientists and mathematicians to express very large or extreme numbers.

Video time: 

Now, write these numbers out in scientific notation. 

Here's what they should look like: 

The population of the world is about 7,117,000,000.                              (Answer: 7.117 x 109)

The distance from Earth to the Sun is about 92,960,000 miles.                        (Answer: 9.296 x 107)

The human body contains approximately 60,000,000,000,000 to 90,000,000,000,000 cells. 
(Answer: 6.0 x 1013 to 9.0 x 1013)

The mass of a particle of dust is 0.000000000753 kg.                        (Answer: 7.53 x 10-10)

The length of the shortest wavelength of visible light (violet) is 0.0000004 meters.                                                                                                     (Answer: 4.0 x 10-7)