Large Numbers

Metric and Engineering Notation

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5577/flesson/metric.html

The three modern systems for large numbers:

Metric - uses a prefix (to the units) which corresponds to the traditional name, or number of commas
Scientific Notation - uses a power of 10 to show the magnitude of the number
Engineering Notation - a compromise between the first two - the exponent always corresponds to the metric prefix, that is, the exponent is always a multiple of 3.

Old Nomenclature	Traditional Notation	Metric Prefix	Engineering and Scientific Notation
Trillion	1,000,000,000,000	Tera	10¹²
Billion	1,000,000,000	Giga	10⁹
Million	1,000,000	Mega	10⁶
Thousand	1,000	Kilo	10³
*******
hundredth ***	0.01	centi	10^-2* not part of Eng. Notation
thousandth	0.001	milli	10^-3
millionth	0.000001	micro	10^-6
billionth	0.000000001	nano	10^-9

Students need to practice the meaning before rushing into practicing conversions.

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