0.5401 in scientific notation

Answer 1

Scientific notation is any number from 1 to 9.9 multiplied by a power of 10.

To write a decimal in scientific notation, start from the left to find the first non-null digit, which in our case is the 5. Write down that numeral followed by a decimal point and the rest of the digits.

You get: 5.401

Then write " x 10" behind it.

You get: 5.401 x 10

Now add an exponent that expresses how many digits you would have to move the decimal point to get the original decimal you started with.

Here that value is "1", because you would have to move the decimal point one digit to the left. And because you would have to move the decimal point to the left, the exponent becomes negative.

You get: 5.401 x 10^-1

[NOTE: if you had started with 54.01 you would get 5.401 x 10¹, because you would need to move the decimal point to the right to get the original decimal.]

Answer 2

Numbers in scientific notation are written as a number (N), multiplied by 10 with an exponent, which we’ll call Y. So, N x 10^y.

The first thing you’ll want to do in this problem is turn the decimal number into a whole number by moving the decimal one place to the right. This gives you 5.401 for N.

To find the exponent for y, we’re really looking at the number of times the decimal has been moved and in which direction. Because we moved the decimal one place to the right and 5.401 is a larger number than .5401, the decimal is going to be negative.

So the correct scientific notation is 54.01 x 10^-1