During this course you will encounter scientific notation. Below I give a short tutorial of the most important rules. By scientific notation we mean that we express 3,350 as 3.35x103, 0.00508 as 5.08x10-3, 1/16 as 6.75x10-2, etc. (There are special cases, for instance, like numbers between 1 and 100 where we usually do not bother to use scientific notation, e.g., 25 (= 2.5x101) and 4 (= 4x100). There are specific rules about adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying numbers expressed in scientific notation.
In the next example, they have to be made the same.
3.6x103 - 2.4x102 = 36x102
- 2.4x102 = (36 - 2.4)x102 = 33.6x102
= 3.36x103.
Further examples:
1.2x10-2 + 2.4x10-1 = (0.12 + 2.4)x10-1
= 2.52x10-1.
2.3 + 4.2x102 = (0.023 + 4.2)x102
= 4.223x102.