LESSON 2 : Expression of
Measurements in Scientific Notation
ACTIVITY 1 : PM Sent
Your classmate messaged you to
ask a copy of the assignment
given by your teacher.
Here is the message :
“Friend I have a problem and I really need
your help. While walking home from school, I
got drenched in the rain. Unfortunately , my
bag is unzipped and my notebooks got soaked. I
can no longer read the assignment given to us
in Gen.Physics. Can you send me a copy please.
Thank you .”
SCIENTIFIC NOTATION
also known as
exponential notation
which was developed to represent very
large or very small numbers in a shorter
form.
PRE-TEST : Let’s test your stock knowledge!
A. Writing Numbers in Different Ways . Read the statements and
write the numbers in scientific notation on the space provided
before each item.
_________ 1. The population of the world is about 7,117,000,000.
_________ 2. The distance from Earth to the Sun is about 92,960,000
miles.
_________ 3. The human body contains approximately
60,000,000,000,000 or more cells.
_________ 4. The mass of a particle of dust is 0.000000000753 kg.
_________ 5. The length of the shortest wavelength of visible light
(violet) is 0.0000004 meters.
SAMPLE PROBLEM :
The mass of electron in standard
notation form is 0.000 000 000 000
000 000 000 000 000 000 911 kg .
Write it in scientific notation form.
Standard notation to scientific notation
Convert each number to scientific notation:
a. 580,000,000,000m
b. 0.000068g
Solution: a. Determine the power of l0 by counting the
number of places that the decimal must move so that there
is a single nonzero digit to the left of the decimal point (11
places). Since 580,000,000,000 is larger than 10, we use a
positive power of 10:
580,000,000,000m = 5.8 x 𝟏𝑶𝟏𝟏 m
Determine the power of l0 by counting the
number of places the decimal must move so
that there is a single nonzero digit to the left of
the decimal point (five places). Since 0.0000683
is smaller than 1, we use a negative power of
−𝟓
l0: 0.0000683g = 6.83x𝟏𝟎 g
Write down the following numbers in
scientific notation
1.65
000 000
2.0.000 000 477 400
3.245 000 000
4.0.000 800
5.120 000. 000
Using Scientific Notation in Computations
A.(4 𝑥10
) (5 𝑥 10 )
−9
−7
B. (1.2 𝑥 10 ) (4 𝑥 10 )
C. To convert 56 nm to meters,
13
−9
18 𝑋 10𝑥
3
6𝑋 10
7
5
36 𝑋 10𝑥
−4
4 𝑋 10
−8
144 𝑋 10
−3
9 𝑋 10
0001.6
400 000
36 𝑋 10𝑥
−2
6𝑋 10
8
15 𝑋 10𝑥
12
3𝑋 10
4