Scientific Notation and Physical Quantities
Nobody wants to write out 602,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 every time they talk about atoms! Scientific notation saves your hand from cramping by expressing huge or tiny numbers as powers of 10.
The trick is moving that decimal point until you have just one digit to the left of it. Move left for big numbers (positive exponent), move right for tiny numbers (negative exponent). So 65,000 becomes 6.5 ร 10โด, and 0.009807 becomes 9.807 ร 10โปยณ.
Physics deals with two types of quantities: fundamental and derived. Fundamental quantities like length (meters), mass (kilograms), and time (seconds) are the building blocks. Derived quantities like speed m/s are combinations of the fundamentals.
Real Talk: Scientific notation isn't just for show - it's essential for keeping track of significant figures in massive or microscopic measurements.