Scientific notation is used in astronomy and physics to represent large and small numbers. In astronomy, it is used to express distances between celestial objects. In physics, it is used to represent physical quantities like mass and energy.
Scientific notation is commonly used in various professions where very large or very small numbers need to be expressed. Two professions that extensively utilize scientific notation are astronomy and physics.
In astronomy, scientific notation is used to represent the vast distances between celestial objects, such as the distance from Earth to the moon or to the nearest star. For example, the distance to the moon is approximately 384,400 kilometers, which is expressed as 3.844 × 10^5 km in scientific notation.
In physics, scientific notation is used to represent physical quantities, such as the mass of subatomic particles or the energy of electromagnetic waves. For instance, the mass of an electron is approximately 9.10938356 × 10^-31 kilograms, which is expressed in scientific notation.