Because every science course I’ve taken so far has left me even more confused than ever.
In: 15
The basic principle of scientific notation is just keeping things relatable and simple by shifting decimal points.
For instance 1000 has 3 zeros to the right of the 1, thus it can be written as 1*10^(3).
0.001 on the other hand has 3 Zeros to the left of the 1 and thus can be written as 1*10^(-3). This is because division and multiplication by 10 simply moves the decimal point when using the decimal system.
Why is that useful? Why not just write 1000 or 0,001? why not 1k for 1000?
Well such a convention makes working with very small or very large numbers way easier.
For instance if you’re working with gravity you’ll have to use the mass of planets, stars or even heavier objects. The Earth has a mass of 5.97*10^(24)kg, this means it is a 5.97 and now you shift the decimal point 24 places to the right. That’s way too large to write every time you want to calculate something.
Same goes for very small objects, if you wanted to work with the mass of a proton you’d have to deal with a value of 1.6*10^(-27)kg. Do you really want to write that many zeros in front of the value?
On top of that it makes calculations way simpler because one can leave everything comparable by using the same units. See how one value is very large, one is very small but both are still given in kg? This makes harder calculations simple using rules of exponents.
For example imagine you had two values:
A: 2 quintillion
B: 8 septillion
Now calculate A*B.
Do you know what 2 quintillion times 8 septillion is? You probably get the 16 right immediately but what about the units? What the heck is a quintillion times a septillion?
Instead of breaking our heads on the naming, just convert them to scientific notation.
A: 2*10^(18)
B: 8*10^(24)
Now calculating A*B is as easy as doing 2*8 and 18+24, the result is: 16*10^(42)
You could now shift the decimal by one to the left and write 1.6*10^(43) instead and be done (although 16*10^(42) would also be perfectly valid, so this step is optional).
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