Question 514146: What are the practical usages of scientific notation? Why is scientific notation so important in our modern day society? What would be the value of expressing something like the national debt in scientific notation? What information would be lost in such a usage? Is that important? Explain why or why not.
Answer by richard1234(7193)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! Scientific notation is used primarily in *science* for expressing certain quantities such as the mass of a particle or the amount of force exerted. This is different from engineering notation (similar to scientific notation, except the exponents are multiples of 3 to allow for common SI prefixes). For example, 4.7 * 10^4 would be written as 47 * 10^3 in engineering notation.
The national debt is rarely, if at all, expressed in scientific notation because most everyone knows what 14 trillion dollars is. If the debt were somehow 14 quadrillion dollars we would either use scientific notation or say "14,000 trillion."
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