Question

How do you write `0.0000485` in scientific notation?

Answer 1

`4.85*10^-5`

Explanation:

you take that number and count how far away the first digit is from `0`. The `8` is five digits away from the zero after the decimal.

The five will be the exponent, but since the non-zero digits are to the right of the zeroes, it'll be `-5`. We're basically looping the decimal 5 times to the right, which means the exponent will be negative.

`=>4.85*10^-5`

Answer 2

`4.85*10^-5`

Explanation:

When we write numbers in scientific notation, we want the decimal after the first non-zero digit.

In our case, we want the decimal between the `4` and the `8`. This means we have to loop the decimal five times to the right.

The `5` will be our exponent, but since we looped it right, it'll be negative. Thus, we have:

`4.85*10^-5`

Hope this helps!