Scientific Notation Converter
1234.5, 0.00012, 6.02 × 10^23, 1.6x10^-19, 3e8 or 4.5 × 10⁻⁶
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Scientific notation
- E notation
- 1.60217e-19
- Standard form
- 0.000000000000000000160217
- Engineering notation
- 160.217 × 10^-21 · SI prefix z (zepto)
6 significant figures in the input (trailing zeros in a whole number such as 8,100,000,000 are treated as not significant).
Scientific notation writes a number as a coefficient from 1 up to (but not including) 10 times a power of ten; the exponent counts how many places the decimal point moves. Engineering notation keeps exponents to multiples of 3 to match SI prefixes. Digits are handled exactly, with no floating-point rounding.
Convert numbers to and from scientific notation, E notation, engineering notation and standard form, round to a chosen number of significant figures, and see how many significant figures the input has. Digits are handled exactly, without floating-point rounding.
Formula
Worked Example
The decimal point moves 19 places to the right to give a coefficient between 1 and 10, so the exponent is −19. Engineering notation uses −21, the nearest multiple of 3 below, which matches the SI prefix zepto.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I convert a number to scientific notation?
Move the decimal point until one non-zero digit is left of it, and count the moves: that count is the exponent, positive if you moved left (large numbers) and negative if you moved right (small numbers). 45,000 = 4.5 × 10⁴ and 0.0032 = 3.2 × 10⁻³.
What is E notation?
The way calculators and programming languages write scientific notation: 6.02e23 means 6.02 × 10²³ and 1.6E-19 means 1.6 × 10⁻¹⁹.
How do significant figures work?
All non-zero digits count, zeros between them count, leading zeros never count and trailing zeros count only after a decimal point. 0.00450 has three significant figures, while 8,100,000,000 written without a decimal point is usually read as having two.