Q:

Charles is reading about computers. He learns that a computer processor can perform one command in approximately 0.000000016 nanoseconds. What is this number expressed in scientific notation? there are multiple answers on this problem.1.6E-81.6 × 10-71.6 × 10-81.6E-71.6 × 1081.6E81.6 × 1071.6E7

Accepted Solution

A:
To convert our number to scientific notation, we are going to move the decimal point to the right until we have only one non-zero digit to the left of the decimal point, and then, we are going to multiply that number by a negative power of 10 equal to the number of times we moved the decimal point to the right:

Our number is 0.000000016, so we need to move the decimal point 8 times to the right to have only one non-zero digit to the left of the decimal point (1.6). Since we moved the decimal point eight times to the right, we are going to multiply 1.6 by y a negative power of 10 equal to the number of times we moved the decimal point to the right i.e. [tex]10^{-8}[/tex].
So 0.000000016 expressed in scientific notation is 1.6x[tex]10^-8[/tex], or in calculator notation 1.6E-8

We can conclude that the correct answers are 1.6E-8 and 1.6 × 10-8