Standard Form & Units of measurement

Standard Form

A way of writing very large or very small numbers by comparing the powers of ten; also known as scientific notation.

Base Unit

The fundamental unit of measurement in the metric system that values must be converted to before performing calculations.

Metric Prefix Scale

A scale that uses SI prefixes to form decimal multiples and submultiples of SI units, typically multiplying or dividing by powers of ten.

Process of Writing in Standard Form

Identify a number between 1 and 10, then determine how many times to multiply it by 10 to retrieve the original number.

Example of Writing in Standard Form

5,000 can be expressed as 5 x 10^3, because 5 is between 1 and 10 and multiplying it by 10 three times gives 5,000.

Powers of Ten

Numbers expressed as 10, 100, 1,000, etc., used in standard form to represent large or small numbers.