Scientific Notation Calculator
Convert a decimal number to scientific notation, or vice versa.
| Scientific Notation | 4.56 × 10⁻⁵ |
| Standard (Decimal) Form | 0.0000456 |
What Is Scientific Notation?
Scientific notation writes a number as a coefficient between 1 and 10, multiplied by a power of 10 - useful for very large or very small numbers that would otherwise need a lot of zeros. For example, 45,600 becomes 4.56 × 10⁴, and 0.0000456 becomes 4.56 × 10⁻⁵.
Where 1 ≤ |a| < 10 and n is a whole number (positive, negative, or zero)
Converting Either Direction
To go from decimal to scientific notation, the decimal point is moved until only one non-zero digit remains to its left, and the number of places moved becomes the exponent (positive if you moved left, negative if you moved right). To convert back, you move the decimal point in the opposite direction by that many places.