Computer Data Representation

Scientific Notation:

• Science deals regularly with very large and very small numbers.
• To do so it adopts Floating Point Notation.  Below are some examples:

e.g. 1. the distance between the Earth and Sun:

1.496x10¹¹ meters = 149600000000

e.g. 2. the distance between an atom's nucleus and an electron:

0.529x10^-10 meters = 0.0000000000529

Since the base of the number system can be inferred, the "x10" part is required.

But a way was needed to distinguish the "mantissa" (e.g. 1.496 and 0.529 above) from the "exponent" (10¹¹ and 10^-10 above) .

So these are alternately expressed in the form: +1.496E11, and +.529E-10

Scientific Notation is a type of Floating Point Notation.