Scientific notation is a way of writing numbers that are very large or very small in a compact and standardized format. It involves expressing a number as a product of a coefficient (a number between 1 and 10) and a power of 10.
For example, the number 1,000,000 can be expressed in scientific notation as 1 x 10^6, where the coefficient is 1 and the power of 10 is 6. Similarly, the number 0.00002 can be expressed as 2 x 10^-5, where the coefficient is 2 and the power of 10 is -5.
Scientific notation is useful in scientific and engineering contexts where very large or very small numbers are commonly used. It allows for easier and more concise representation of these numbers in calculations and data analysis.