Question

How do you write 36.41 in scientific notation?

Answer 1

`3.641xx10`
Follow me method and you are not likely to go wrong!

Explanation:

Keep the decimal place stationary and 'slide' the number to the right until there is only one number to its left. The number of times you need to slide is the power you take 10 to.

Slide to the right 1 place giving: `3.641`

But this is not the same value we started with so we need to change it so that it is. We need to multiply it by 10 in that:

`10xx3.641 = 36.41`

In this case the power for 10 is 1. In that we have `10^1` but this is simply written as just 10.

So the final answer is: `3.641xx10`

Another time you may need to 'slide' to the left. In which case your 10 would look like `10^(-x)`

If you had `0.032 -> 3.2xx10^(-2)`