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Scientific Notation

There are six things that you need to know about a number to put it in scientific notation:

The sign of the number - whether it is positive or negative ( + or - )

The sgnificand, or mantissa (the number part itself)

The value of the exponent. The exponent is the power to which the base it raised.

The sign of the exponent

Base of the exponent (10 if decimal as in the example)

Location of radix point (decimal point in the example)

Computer analogues of scientific notation are described as floating-point representations.