Scientific notation is a way of expressing numbers that are too large or too small to be conveniently written in decimal form, since to do so would require writing out an inconveniently long string of digits. It may be referred to as scientific form or standard index form, or standard form in the United Kingdom. This base ten notation is commonly used by scientists, mathematicians, and engineers, in part because it can simplify certain arithmetic operations. On scientific calculators, it is usually known as "SCI" display mode.

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In scientific notation, nonzero numbers are written in the form

or m times ten raised to the power of n, where n is an integer, and the coefficient m is a nonzero real number (usually between 1 and 10 in absolute value, and nearly always written as a terminating decimal). The integer n is called the exponent and the real number m is called the significand or mantissa.

Most popular programming languages – including Fortran, C/C++, Python, and JavaScript – use this "E" notation, which comes from Fortran and was present in the first version released for the IBM 704 in 1956.

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  • Decimal to Scientific Notation Converter
  • Scientific Notation to Decimal Converter
  • Scientific Notation in Everyday Life
  • An exercise in converting to and from scientific notation
  • Scientific Notation Converter
  • Scientific Notation chapter from Lessons In Electric Circuits Vol 1 DC free ebook and Lessons In Electric Circuits series.