PUTTING NUMBERS IN PERSPECIVE

Examples

6,700,000,000 in scientific notation is 6.7 × 109 0.000000000000002 is 2.0 × 10−15 Giving Meaning to Numbers Perspective through estimation An order of magnitude estimate specifies a broad range of values, usually within one or two powers of ten, such as "in the ten thousands" or "in the millions."

Example

Order of Magnitude of Ice Cream Spending Is the total annual ice cream spending in the United States measured in thousands of dollars, millions of dollars, or billions of dollars

Example

U.S. vs. World Energy Consumption (1 of 2) Compare the U.S. population to the world population and U.S. energy consumption to world energy consumption

Example

U.S. vs. World Energy Consumption (2 of 2) The U.S. population is only about 4% of the worlds population but, as shown in Table 3.1, the United States uses about 1/6.3, or about 16%, of the worlds energy