Is an order of magnitude simply 10x bigger or smaller and 2 orders of magnitude simply 100x bigger or smaller. If this is correct why not simply say 10x or 100x bigger/smaller?
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Our number system is based on powers of 10. 100 = 10^2, 1000 = 10^3 and so on. Orders of magnitude are just the difference between the powers of 10 involved.
As for why they are used, they are rather useful when comparing really large numbers and/or very rough estimates, since saying “these two things differ by 13 orders of magnitude” is less clunky than saying “thing A is ten trillion times larger than thing B2”.
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