NUMBERS IN CHEMISTRY EXPONENTIAL NOTATION

An essential skill in chemistry is the ability to handle numbers, including very large and very small numbers. An example of the former is Avogadro s number, which is discussed in detail in Chapters 2 and 3. Avogadro s number is a way of expressing quantities of entities such as atoms or molecules and is equal to approximately 602 000 000 000 000 000 000 000. A number so large written in this decimal form is very cumbersome to express and very difficult to handle in calculations. It can be expressed much more conveniently in exponential notation. Avogadro s 

A number in exponential notation consists of a digital number equal to or greater than exactly 1 and less than exactly 10 (e.g., 1.00000,4.3,6.913,8.005, and 9.99999) multiplied by a power of 10 (e.g., 10 , 10, 10 , 10, and Some examples of numbers expressed in exponential notation are given in Ihble 1.2. As can be seen in the second column of the table, a positive power of 10 shows the number of times that the digital number is multiplied by 10 and a negative power of 10 shows the number of times that the digital number is divided by 10. 

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