That's not too big to just punch into a scientific or graphing
calculator. You get the answer immediately as
1.203242085 x 1015
That's no fun.
Your teacher should have given you one that will overflow any
calculator's capacity. Like putting a couple more 9's under
that square root to make it too big for calculators:
You can't punch that on a calculator. It'll overflow.
So you'll have to use logarithms. Set x equal to the quantity
Use your calculator to get the exponent
Take the log (base 10) of both sides:
Use your calculator to get the right side:
Raise 10 to both sides' power:
The left side is just x. The right side is too big for
calculators, so split the exponent into an integer and
a decimal
Write the right side as the product of powers of 10
Next use your calculator to get
That's the answer in scientific notation to the problem
I made up. But that's the way to do them if they're too
big for a calculator.
Edwin
