what is 1/800 equal to in scientific notatation

Question

i have no idea how to do this... HELP

Answer 1

Hi, Irie.  To express numbers in scientific notation, you need to convert this value from a fraction into a decimal.  Remember that fractions like 1/800 can be treated like a division problem, that is "1 divided by 800."

 

For now I'll assume you'll know how to do this division...let me know if you need help with this part.  So after dividing 1 by 800, you get the decimal 0.00125.

 

Now, what scientific notation does is it shifts your numbers so the first nonzero digit (1 in this case) is a whole number, and the rest are expressed as decimals.  It then multiplies these by a power of 10, where the power represents the number of positions the decimal point moves.

 

Example 1: 2500 would be 2.5×10³ because you're shifting the decimal point three positions to the left (from 2500.0 to 2.5).

 

Example 2: 0.059 would be 5.9×10^-2 because you're shifting the decimal point two positions to the right.

 

Example 3: 1.58 would be 1.58×10⁰ because you're not shifting the decimal point at all.

 

So for the value we determined above, 0.00125, the scientific notation is:

1.25×10^-3 because you're shifting the decimal point three positions to the right, as in example 2.

 

Let me know if you have any further questions!

Answer 2

Hi Irie;

1/800

(1/8) x 10^-2

This is also...

(1/8)(1/100)

1/800

Assuming Curt is correct, then...

(1/8)(1/100)

0.125 x 10^-2

1.25 x 10^-3

12.5 x 10^-4