Question

How do you write 673.5 in scientific notation?

Answer 1

To write the expression in scientific notation we need to move the decimal point 2 places to the left so the exponent for the 10s term will be positive:

`673.5 = 6.735 xx 10^2`

Answer 2

`6.735*10^2`

Explanation:

By definition, scientific notation is expressed in a form of

`a*10^n` where `10>a>1` and `n` is an integer.

Using this definition, we can form `a` by expressing it as `6.735` multiplied by a power of `10`. But what power of `10` should we multiply it by?

What this is really asking is

`6.735*10^n=673.5`

Well that's easy! `6.735` multiplied by `100` is `673.5`! And since `100` is `10^2`, we can now write our scientific notation expression!

`6.735*10^2`