Scientific Notation

[Wordkeeper]

Ok, so I took a Math test a few days ago, and I just got it back. One of the questions involved scientific notation.

The question was to turn 205,000 into scientific notation.

The answer I had put was: 2.05000 x 10 to the power of 5

And although the "proper" way to write it would be to take out the zeros to make it 2.05 x 10 to the power of 5, is mine in actuality wrong? The place value is less than 10, and greater than one...

[tezza98]

Ok, so I took a Math test a few days ago, and I just got it back. One of the questions involved scientific notation.

The question was to turn 205,000 into scientific notation.

The answer I had put was: 2.05000 x 10 to the power of 5

And although the "proper" way to write it would be to take out the zeros to make it 2.05 x 10 to the power of 5, is mine in actuality wrong? The place value is less than 10, and greater than one...

You have put in redundant zeros, so yes technically it is wrong - seeing as mathemetiticains are a lazy bunch, they dont like to write anything extra if they can avoid it, all youve done is more writing for yourself

when you write 2.05, you dont write 2.05000000000000000, instead you write 2.05, it is the same foe Scientific notation, unless the decimal place is specified, ie write 205,000 in scientific notation accurate to the 8th decimal place

[jkmyoung]

Your answer is not wrong, if all 6 digits were significant in the first place. However, lacking that information, you can only conclude the first 3 are.

[Scott Price]

There does arise a problem with including the extra zeros when you begin to use numbers like that in computer programming. Computers are too literally minded, and so will assume (in general terms) that the zeros DO have significance, and thus may treat it like a separate number in certain instances.

See this post: http://www.thescripts.com/forum/thread710030.html for one of those certain instances.

Regards,
Scott