Question

the chance of you having the same DNA as another person (other than an identical twin) is approximately 1 in 10 trillion (one trillion is a 1 by 12 zeros). Given the fraction,express this very small number using a negative power of 101/10,000,000,000,000

Answer 1

We are asked to write the quotient : 1/10,000,000,000,000 in a notation with powers of ten. This is called "scientific notation".

when we perform the division of 1 by that enormous number, we get:

0.0000000000001

This can be represented by a 10 to a negative exponent. Notice that we have 13 zeros in the denominator (which implies that we have to divide 13 times by ten)

so we can write the answer as: 1 * 10^(-13)

which with the appropriate equation editor becomes:

`1\cdot10^(-13)`

the base 10 with exponent -13 (negative 13)