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Asked by: Jayne Bahvaloff
video gaming music and party video gamesHow is scientific notation used in engineering?
Just so, how are exponents used in engineering?
Exponents in: Aeronautical engineering Engineers need to use exponents because they are constantly facing big and small numbers. Engineers use exponents to calculate tensile strength, which determines the amount of stress that a structure can withstand.
People also ask, why do we use engineering notation instead of scientific notation?
This shorthand representation keeps numbers from getting too long, making it easier to read numbers that are very big or very small as many quantitites tend to be in engineering settings. This is similar in spirit to scientific notation, which uses strictly integer powers of 10.
If you want the measurement to be 100 with three significant figures (implying an uncertainty of ), you could write it as 100. (with a trailing decimal point) or, less subtly, as , or (even better) with an explicit uncertainty such as or “100 to three significant figures”.