Standard form
A way of writing very large or very small numbers as a × 10ⁿ where 1 ≤ a < 10 and n is an integer.
Definition
300,000 in standard form is 3 × 10⁵. 0.00047 is 4.7 × 10⁻⁴. The mantissa a is always between 1 (inclusive) and 10 (exclusive).
Example
Write 56,000 in standard form. 5.6 × 10⁴.
Common confusion
A mantissa of 0.5 × 10⁵ is NOT standard form — the mantissa must be ≥ 1.
Used in these topics
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