In advanced topics in Physics, scie

In advanced topics in Physics, scientists work with a constant number called Planck’s constant. This number is so microscopically small that when written down on paper, there will be 33 zeroes after the decimal point before you see any number other than zero.

Scientists who study planets and stars often have to deal with large numbers. For example, the mass of the earth. This quantity is so big that there are 25 digits in the number.

These are all real numbers that are found in nature. Writing these numbers in their complete form is tedious and often practically impossible. How do we work with these numbers then?

We use what is called a Scientific Notation. In scientific notation, any real number can be expressed in the form

a multiplied by 10 to the power of b

where a is a real number and b is any integer

Isn’t this a lot more cleaner and compact? The big numbers can be expressed as higher powers of 10 and the small, microscopic quantities can be expressed as decimals by raising 10 to negative integers.