Engineering Notation
Description: In electronics, we frequently work with very small and very large numbers. For example, the propagation delay (i.e., the time it takes for the output to change after the input has changed) for a standard digital logic gate is 0.0000000095 seconds. Moreover, the clock speed of a typical personal computer is 2400000000 Hz. Working with numbers of this magnitude, both large and small, can be cumbersome and prone to error. For this reason we use a power-of-ten notation. With a power-of-ten notation, any number, no matter how large or small, can be expressed as a decimal number multiplied by a power-of-ten.Scientific and engineering notations are the two most common forms of power-of-ten notation. In the field of electronics, engineering notation is the preferred notation because of the direct mapping between its powers and the International System of Units (the International System of Units is abbreviated SI from the French Système International d'Unités). The SI system is the modern form of the metric system. It is the world's most widely used system of units for science and engineering.
In this activity you will learn how to express numbers in scientific and engineering notation as well as the appropriate SI prefix.
In this activity you will learn how to express numbers in scientific and engineering notation as well as the appropriate SI prefix.