All scientific notations include the power of 10. The power of 10 also has an exponent, meaning it is raised to a power; the exponent may be a positive or negative integer, depending on if the number is large or small.

​Power of 10

A number, usually stated in decimal form. The coefficient always has exactly one, non-zero digit in the ones place, meaning the decimal point is placed immediately after the first digit.

​Coefficient

Parts of Scientific Notation

Review the table on the next slide. Use the data to determine the relationship between the two columns!

Scientific
Notation

Standard
Notation

What do you
notice?

What do you
wonder?

​Standard Notation

​Scientific Notation

Converting between Scientific and Standard Notations

​Standard Notation

​Scientific Notation

Converting between Scientific and Standard Notations

In this example, the coefficient is multiplied by 10 raised to the power of 3 (or 1,000). So, the result of multiplying 3.258 x 1,000 is 3,258.

The same result can be obtained by starting with the coefficient and moving the decimal point three places to the right. The number of places moved is equal to the exponent. If the exponent is positive, move the decimal point to the right; if negative, move the decimal point to the left.