How do you convert .0000321 into scientific notation?

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Answer 1 · 2015-07-12T23:42:19

The number in standard scientific notation is $3.21× 10^(-5)$ .

In scientific notation, numbers are written in the form $a × 10^b$ , where $a$ is the "pre-exponential" part and $10^b$ is the "exponential part".

Your number in decimal form is $".0000321"$ .

To get to "standard" scientific notation, we move the decimal point so there is only one non-zero digit in front of the decimal point.

So, $".0000321"$ becomes $"00003.21"$ .

The leading zeroes are not significant, so $"00003.21"$ becomes $3.21$ .

We moved the decimal point five places, so the exponent is $5$ .

We moved the decimal point to the right, so the exponent is negative.

The exponential part is therefore $10^(-5)$ .

$.0000321 = 3.21 × 10^(-5)$