Scientific Notation Converter
Convert a number to scientific notation, E notation and engineering notation, or go the other way — type 1.5e8 or 1.5 x 10^8 to get the ordinary decimal. The conversion works on the digits you type, so nothing is lost to rounding.
- E notation
- 5.2e-4
- Engineering notation
- 520 × 10⁻⁶
- Ordinary decimal
- 0.00052
- Power of ten
- -4
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Formula
How to use it
- Type a number in any form: 123,400, 0.00052, 1.5e8 or 1.5 x 10^8.
- Read the scientific, E and engineering forms.
- If you typed scientific notation, the ordinary decimal line shows it written out.
Worked examples
0.00052 in scientific notation
- Scientific notation
- 5.2 × 10⁻⁴
- E notation
- 5.2e-4
- Engineering notation
- 520 × 10⁻⁶
- Power of ten
- -4
The speed of light, 299,792,458 m/s
- Scientific notation
- 2.99792458 × 10⁸
- Engineering notation
- 299.792458 × 10⁶
- Power of ten
- 8
1.5 × 10^8 back to an ordinary number
- Ordinary decimal
- 150,000,000
- Scientific notation
- 1.5 × 10⁸
Moving the decimal point
Slide the decimal point until one non-zero digit is left in front of it. Each place you move it left adds 1 to the exponent; each place right subtracts 1. For 0.00052 the point moves four places right, giving 5.2 × 10⁻⁴. For 299,792,458 it moves eight places left, giving 2.99792458 × 10⁸.
E notation and engineering notation
Spreadsheets, calculators and programming languages write 5.2 × 10⁻⁴ as 5.2E-4 or 5.2e-4. It means exactly the same thing.
Engineering notation keeps the exponent a multiple of three so it lines up with metric prefixes: 10³ kilo, 10⁶ mega, 10⁹ giga, 10⁻³ milli, 10⁻⁶ micro, 10⁻⁹ nano. So 0.00052 becomes 520 × 10⁻⁶ — 520 micro-units.
Trailing zeros typed after a decimal point are kept, because they are significant: 1200.0 becomes 1.2000 × 10³, while 1200 becomes 1.2 × 10³.
Questions people ask
What is 0.00052 in scientific notation?
5.2 × 10⁻⁴.
How do you write 299,792,458 in scientific notation?
2.99792458 × 10⁸, usually rounded to 3.00 × 10⁸ for the speed of light in meters per second.
What is 1.5 × 10⁸ as an ordinary number?
150,000,000. Move the decimal point eight places to the right.
What does 6.022e23 mean?
6.022 × 10²³. The “e” stands for “times ten to the power of”; it has nothing to do with the constant e.