Katharine O. answered • 03/01/16
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High School Chemistry Teacher Simplifying Science and Math
Scientific notation is a method used to simplify really large or really small numbers - essentially to omit trailing or leading zeros. Using the exponent of 10 allows the value to be more concise... so having said that, it would only make sense that the first part of a scientific notation value be between 1 and 9.9999(...), because if it were smaller than 1 (0.9999) we could further simplify the value by decreasing the exponent of 10 by 1, to make 9.999 x 10-1 . Likewise, if the value were greater than or equal to 10 (10.001), it could be simplified by increasing the exponent of 10 by 1 (1.0001 x 101).
Negative exponents shift the decimal to the left (indicating a small total value), and positive exponents shift the decimal to the right (indicating a large total value). By "total value" I mean what the value of the number is when not in scientific notation.
With this concept in mind and using the process of elimination, only 1 of the answers you provided is correct.
