Hey Arobie, no bother at all . . . it's fun, I'm at work and I sneak over to look at threads from time to time. But sometimes it takes me a while to write the simplest posts 'cuz my boss keeps walking by. <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> The quiet rebel doncha know . . .<br /><br />Scientific notation, as said . . .<br /><br />the 'E' in this case is short for 10^<br /><br />10^ means "Ten raised to the power of . . . "<br /><br />So E3 equals 10^3 equals 10*10*10 equals 1000<br /><br />So 2.35E3 equals 2.35 * 10^3 equals 2350<br /><br />When you get into really big numbers you have little choice but to use scientific notation.<br /><br />The trick is to count the number of places the decimal moves, that's your power of ten.<br /><br />So to convert<br />398600.44<br />to Scientific Notation, we're going to move the decimal until there's just one digit before the decimal.<br />We move the decimal 5 places to change it to<br />3.9860044<br />so we have converted<br />398600.44 to 3.9860044E5<br /><br />The next lesson is "significant digits" . . . <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>