Question

The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, or about 671,000,000 miles per hour. How would you express these numbers in scientific notation?

Answer 1

Answer:

30 × 10^8 kilometres per second.

Answer 2

Scientific notation is a way in which large numbers are expressed in the form of decimal numbers with one digit after the decimal multiplied by 10 to some power.

In a general form, we have, $a*10^{b}$ where a is a decimal number.

Expressing the speed of light in scientific notations,

186,000 miles per second

The decimal point needs to be after 1. thus, multiplying and dividing by $10^{5}$ gives us $( \frac{186000}{10^{5} } ) * 10^{5} = 1.86*10^{5}$ miles per second.

671000000 miles per hour

The decimal point needs to be after 6. thus, multiplying and dividing by $10^{8}$ gives us $( \frac{671000000}{10^{8} } ) * 10^{8} = 6.71*10^{5}$ miles per hour