I remember when math used to be fun
- Locked due to inactivity on Apr 20, '22 3:54am
Thread Topic: I remember when math used to be fun
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Yeah.
Do you know what specifically is messing you up or is it just everything about it?
Also, how has your teacher explained it, I don't want to sound like a broken record. -
Uh, so I was told that to turn something into scientific notation, I have to divide by 10. Is that true?
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Not necessarily.
If you have a number like 82, then yes, you would just divide by ten, making it 8.2*10^1
But the point of scientific notation is putting large numbers into a smaller form.
If you divide 4530 by 10, you're going to get 453.
The rules for formating scientific notation is that the first number is going to have to be before the decimal point, all others have to be behind it.
Sof if you're putting 4530 into scientific notation, it would be 4.53*10^3.
You're basically just moving the decimal point. Let's say you have the number 592,000,000. In scientific notation, it would be 5.92*10^8. 10^8 is 100,000,000 So in the same way that 1.00 times 100,000,000 equals 100,000,000 In the same way 2.5 times 100,000,000 equals 250,000,000. So does 5.92 times 100,000,000 (10^8) equal 592,000,000.
Does any of what I just said make any sense at all whatsoever?
There's a drawing I can make of it. I remember it helped me a little when I was learning it. -
Sorry that was sort of an information dump
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It does. I'm not dividing by 10 I'm just moving the decimal point until I get something like 4.6, right?
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Exactly.
You do technically divide by tens. But it depends on how many times you have to divide by ten until you reach that format of _ . _ _ (or however many decimal places there are. However many times you divide by 10 is what the power of 10 it's going to be. -
So if I have a decimal 5.7909 can I simplify that to 5.79?
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Only if it says to round.
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Oh. I messed up then. I should probably go fix that.
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I did two examples for the top one and one for the bottom one. -
Okay! Thanks!!
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Shoot I forgot to number the little humps on the bottom one.
Oh well. -
Just tell me when you get to negative exponents. I remember those were tricky for me.
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Already have. I get those.
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Have you applied them to scientific notation yet?
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