Scientific Notation PREFLIGHT

Please type your first name: Please type your LAST NAME and LAST FOUR SS# digits: IN:

The following three questions refer to the material you were to read in preparation for the lesson.

You may change your mind as often as you wish. When you are satisfied with your responses, click the SUBMIT button at the bottom of this page. Don't submit more than once. (If you absolutely HAVE to resubmit it, put a note on the end to that effect.)




Scientific Prefixes

FactorPrefixSymbolFactorPrefixSymbol
1024yottaY10-1deci d
1021zettaZ10-2centic
1018exa E10-3millim
1015peta P10-6microu
1012tera T10-9nano n
10 9giga G10-12pico p
10 6mega M10-15femtof
10 3kilo k10-18atto a
10 2hectoh10-21zeptoz
10 1deka da10-24yoctoy

In the above table, we see the accepted names for certain powers of 10. Scientific notation is great for writing, but lousy for speaking, it takes too many words to say something. ("Three times ten to the power eight meters per second" versus "three hundred megameters per second") Having a different name for every power of ten is too hard to memorize, so we compromise, and have a name for about every third power of 10. The most important are in bold print. You should memorize these names. (The abbreviation for micro is the greek letter "mu", which looks a bit like a "u" with a stem, or an upsidedown "h".) These names modify units of length, or mass, or whatever else you want to measure. So, for instance, a "kilogram" is 1000 grams, or 103 grams. In the box below, write out the answers for the following conversions using the appropriate names for powers of ten.

  1. 106 phones = megaphone
  2. 10-6 phone = microphone
  3. 101 cards = dekacards
  4. 109 lows = gigalow
  5. 1012 bulls = terabull
  6. 10-1 mate = decimate
  7. 10-2 pede = centipede
  8. 10-9 Nannette = nanoNanette
  9. 10-12 boo = picoboo
  10. 10-18 boy = attoboy
  11. 2x102 withits = two hectawithit
  12. 2x103 mockingbirds = two kilomockingbird





honors extra

Whenever a scientist or an engineer wants to make fun of this whole business of using weird units for everyday things, they always seem to bring up the strange units of "furlongs per fortnight" as a measurement of speed. Convert the speed of light, 3x108m/s, into these weird units using scientific notation.
3*108 m/s X 1 mi/1609m X 8 furlong/mi X 3600 s/hr x 24 hr/day x 14 day/fortnight = 1.804*1012furlong/fortnight
(Did the units cancel properly?)






Below is a space for your thoughts, including general comments about today's assignment (what seemed impossible, what reading didn't make sense, what we should spend class time on, what was "cool", etc.):




You may change your mind as often as you wish. When you are satisfied with your responses, click the SUBMIT button.

I received no help from anyone on this assignment.