8th Grade FAST Mathematics Pre-Algebra Practice Test

Scientific notation is a compact way of writing very large or very small numbers. It expresses a number as a coefficient between 1 and 10 multiplied by a power of 10. For example, 4,500,000 can be written as 4.5 × 10^6, and 0.00032 as 3.2 × 10^-4. This form makes it easy to compare magnitudes and to multiply or divide by simply adding or subtracting the exponents. It’s not a rounding method, not a way to solve equations, and not a type of irrational number.