Scientific Notation Converter
Scientific notation expresses any number as a coefficient (a) multiplied by a power of ten (10ᵇ), where 1 ≤ |a| < 10 and b is an integer. This compact form is indispensable in science and engineering for representing extremely large numbers like the speed of light (3 × 10⁸ m/s) or tiny quantities like the mass of an electron (9.11 × 10⁻³¹ kg) without writing out endless zeros.
Engineering notation is a variant that restricts the exponent to multiples of three, aligning with SI prefixes such as kilo (10³), mega (10⁶), and nano (10⁻⁹). This converter works bidirectionally: enter a decimal number to get both scientific and engineering forms, or enter a coefficient and exponent to recover the full decimal value.
How it works
N = a × 10ᵇ, where 1 ≤ |a| < 10 and b is an integer. Engineering notation uses b as a multiple of 3. To convert: b = floor(log₁₀|N|), a = N / 10ᵇ.
Use cases
- Expressing astronomical distances such as light-years or parsecs
- Writing atomic and subatomic measurements in physics and chemistry
- Reading and interpreting scientific paper data and constants
- Simplifying very large or very small numbers for engineering calculations
- Converting between engineering prefixes (kilo, mega, giga, micro, nano)