09-12-2016, 07:10 AM
Physicists have used "sceintific" notation for many decades. Certainly in written work, less so in speech. For example 2.7*10^-9 would be 2.7 nano (the ^ is a fairly modern convention from computer programming, traditionally the exponent was a superscript) This notation saves lots of zeros which can be confusing to anyone. Even those who are very numerate can boggle at counting up all those zeros. Another modern way of writing this is 2.7E-9. This is typically how you would enter it into a calculator.
The engineers took this one step further and used exponents that multiples of 3. This fits with pico, nano etc.
In the days before calculators people used slide rules and log tables. This only helped with the significant digits. You did the exponent manually. It gave you a very good sense of the order of magnitude of the result.
The engineers took this one step further and used exponents that multiples of 3. This fits with pico, nano etc.
In the days before calculators people used slide rules and log tables. This only helped with the significant digits. You did the exponent manually. It gave you a very good sense of the order of magnitude of the result.
www.borinsky.co.uk Jeffrey Borinsky www.becg.tv
