Final answer:
Scientific notation is used in the real world to express very large or small numbers in a compact and convenient way.
Step-by-step explanation:
Scientific notation is used in the real world to express very large or small numbers in a compact and convenient way. It is particularly helpful in fields such as astronomy, where distances in space are incredibly large, and in atomic physics, where the sizes of atomic particles are extremely small. For example, the distance from Earth to the Sun, which is about 150,000,000,000 meters, can be written in scientific notation as 1.5 × 1011 m.