Question

Answer the following.

-5
(a) A certain solution has a hydrogen ion concentration of 8.96 × 10 moles per liter. Write this number in standard notation.
(b) A hippopotamus can weigh up to 9900 pounds. Write this number in scientific notation.

Answer 1

a. 0.0000896

b. 9.9 x 10^3

Explanation:

a. The negative 5 shows that you should place the decimal point 5 digits to the left, so the decimal after 8 must move 5 digits to the left: 0.0000896 is the standard notation.

b. To write a number in scientific notation, it should have the following form:

a * 10^b, where a is between 1 and 10, and b is any integer.

Therefore, the a part of our number is 9.9, since 9.9 is between 1 and 10, the b part on the other is going to be determined by the movement of the decimal point. As you can see we moved the decimal three units to the left, so b should be +3 (when multiplying 9.9 by 1000 to bring the decimal to the original position)