Scientific notation is a way of writing numbers. In scientific notation, all numbers are written in the form of a*10^b. In computing "E notation" is often used. It uses "E" or "e" letter instead of "*10^".
Scientific notation is a way of writing numbers that are too big or too small to be conveniently written in decimal form. Scientific notation has a number of useful properties and is commonly used in calculators and by scientists, mathematicians and engineers.
In scientific notation all numbers are written in the form of a*10^b
, where a
(mantissa) is a real number and b
(exponent) is an integer.
There are different subtypes of this notation. E notation is often used in computing. It uses E
or e
letter instead of *10^
. Note: in this usage the character e
is not related to the mathematical constant e or the exponential function e^x
Some examples:
Standard deciaml | Normalized scientific | E (upper) | e (lower)
-----------------+-----------------------+-----------+----------
30 | 3x10^1 | 3E1 | 3e1
1,538.1 | 1.5381x10^3 | 1.5381E3 | 1.5381e3
0.000 005 2 | 5.2x10^(-6) | 5.2E-6 | 5.2e-6
-0.2 | -2x10^(-1) | -2E-1 | -2e-1