The metric system of notation uses alphabetical prefixes to represent certain powers-of-ten instead of the lengthier scientific notation. To convert a number to its equivalent in scientific notation: Place the decimal point to the right of the first non-zero digit.Our last figure from the prior example, “0.267 m”, would be expressed in the new notation as “0m267”.
The new notation replaces the decimal point with the metric prefix character, so that “4.7 k” is printed instead as “4k7”. Since decimal points (”.”) are easily misread and/or “lost” due to poor print quality, quantities such as 4.7 k may be mistaken for 47 k. In recent years a new style of metric notation for electric quantities has emerged which seeks to avoid the use of the decimal point. The same figure may also be expressed as 0.267 milligrams (0.267 mg), although it is usually more common to see the significant digits represented as a figure greater than 1. On the extremely large end of the spectrum, Peta (P) = 10 15, Exa (E) = 10 18, Zetta (Z) = 10 21, and Yotta (Y) = 10 24.īecause the major prefixes in the metric system refer to powers of 10 that are multiples of 3 (from “kilo” on up, and from “milli” on down), metric notation differs from regular scientific notation in that the mantissa can be anywhere between 1 and 999, depending on which prefix is chosen.įor example, if a laboratory sample weighs 0.000267 grams, scientific notation and metric notation would express it differently: On the extremely small end of the spectrum, femto (f) = 10 -15, atto (a) = 10 -18, zepto (z) = 10 -21, and yocto(y) = 10 -24. Engineering notation or engineering form is a version of scientific notation in which the exponent of ten must be divisible by three (i.e., they are powers of a thousand, but written as, for example, 10 6 instead of 1000 2).As an alternative to writing powers of 10, SI prefixes can be used, which also usually provide steps of a factor of a thousand. Other metric prefixes exist to symbolize powers of ten for extremely small and extremely large multipliers. Likewise, 3.21 picoamps would mean 3.21 x 10 -12 amps, or 3.21 1/trillionths of an amp. Looking at this scale, we can see that 2.5 Gigabytes would mean 2.5 x 10 9 bytes, or 2.5 billion bytes.
The following number line shows some of the more common prefixes and their respective powers-of-ten: The primary difference is that the powers-of-ten are represented with alphabetical prefixes instead of by literal powers-of-ten. Hecht oh is 100 or 10 to the second Deca means 10. Power kilo means 1000 which is 10 to the third. The metric system, besides being a collection of measurement units for all sorts of physical quantities, is structured around the concept of scientific notation. And so as we look at each of these mega means a million Which is 10 to the six.
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