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<br />BETA VERSION 3/15/95 <br /> <br />B-C Program: Infrastructure <br /> <br />Review of <br />Scientific <br />Notation <br /> <br />The annual probabilities of floods are expressed in scientific notation <br />because the probabilities may vary from nearly 1 to much less than 1 in a <br />million (0.000001). Scientific notation is a widely-used convenient <br />method of expressing numbers which vary over a very wide range. <br /> <br />In scientific notation, as in the Calculated Annual Probability of Floods <br />table, numbers are expressed in two parts: a prefix and a power of 10. <br />For example, 6E+02, where 6 is the prefix and +02 is the power of 10, <br />means 6 times 102, or6 times 100, or 600. <br /> <br />Another way of thinking about scientific notation is that the power of 10 <br />part of the number tells which direction and how much to move the <br />decimal place. Thus, 6E+02 is 6 with the decimal placed moved to <br />places to the positive (right) direction or 600. Thus, 6E+03 is 6000. <br />Scientific notation with negative powers of ten means to move the <br />decimal place to the negative (left) direction. Thus, 6E-02 is 0.06; 6E-03 <br />is 0.006 and so on. E+OO, means don't move the decimal place. Thus, <br />6E+00 is simply 6. <br /> <br />Scientific notation may seem cumbersome with routine numbers, but it is <br />very convenient when numbers are very large or very small or to <br />compare the relative sizes of very large or small numbers. Thus, 6E-11 <br />is a more convenient way of expressing 0.00000000006. <br /> <br />9 <br />