Final answer:
It is false that moving the decimal point three places to the left while converting to scientific notation results in an exponent with a negative sign. The exponent will be positive as it indicates the number of places the decimal has moved to the left. Moving the decimal point to the right results in a negative exponent.
Step-by-step explanation:
The statement about moving the decimal point three places to the left in scientific notation resulting in a positive exponent is false. When converting a number to scientific notation, moving the decimal to the left leads to a positive exponent, while moving it to the right leads to a negative exponent. Thus, if you move the decimal point three places to the left, the exponent on the 10 will be positive. For instance, the number 56,900 would be written as 5.69 × 104 in scientific notation because the decimal was moved 4 places to the left.
If we consider a very small number such as 0.00000000036, we would move the decimal point 10 places to the right to get 3.6, resulting in a scientific notation of 3.6 × 10-10. The negative exponent indicates the decimal was moved to the right.