It turns out that doing addition and subtraction with numbers in scientific notation is a little harder to do than multiplication and division. Let's do some examples to see if there's a pattern that we can use. For the problems below, first convert the numbers into decimal form, add them together, and convert the answer back into scientific notation. See if you can detect a pattern.
4 X 106 + 5 X 105 = ?
8.4 X 104 + 2.8 X 102 = ?
4.8 X 10-5 + 7.5 X 10-4 = ?
8.1 X 102 + 4 X 10-2 = ?
Now check your answers.
Questions? Ask the designer, Jim Heath
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