Maths Numpty

[Bart]

Guys and gals,


Can some one please explain how I read or interpret a number, e.g. for processing given as weight, of 8.7638e+01?


Maybe I should have paid more attention at school, but as they say, "edumacashun neva dun me nun gud"



Cheers and clears.

[rrussell1962]

Means 8.7638 x (10 to the power of). For example 8.7638e+2 is 8.7638 x(10 to the power of 2) 8.7638 x (10 squared) or 8.7638 x 100.

[gary]

Hi Bart,

Take the part that appears before the e, in this case 8.7638

Now look at the part after the e. They are powers of ten. So in this case e+01 is 10 to the power of 1 which is 10.

Now multiply that first number by that 10.

So 8.7638e+01 is 8.7638 times 10 or 87.638


Background.
The e stands for exponent or exponential.
It originated as a way to enter "floating point numbers", that is numbers that have a decimal point, in early programming languages
such as FORTRAN. The keyboards didn't have any easy way to enter a superscript so this notation made it possible to specify these types of
numbers in the program. It persists today in most programming languagess.

[leon]

Ok, that is all fine but surly it could have been written in a less complicated way, just saying

Leon

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by Bart

Maybe I should have paid more attention at school, but as they say, "edumacashun neva dun me nun gud"

Originally Posted by leon

Ok, that is all fine but surly it could have been written in a less complicated way, just saying

Leon

You mean like this Leon?

"edumacashun neva dun me nun gud" x 0 = 0

[gary]

Originally Posted by leon

Ok, that is all fine but surly it could have been written in a less complicated way, just saying

Leon

Hi Leon,

Try writing down 9.28304823e+97 long hand and then come back to us and
let us know which is the least complicated.

Just saying.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by gary

Hi Leon,

Try writing down 9.28304823e+97 long hand and then come back to us and
let us know which is the least complicated.

Just saying.

Did you hear that loud bang in the background? That was Leon's laptop experiencing a stack overflow. Hang on a sec... is that binary smoke signals I see rising on the horizon?

[julianh72 (Julian)]

Scientific Notation allows us to deal with very large or very small numbers, at whatever precision we need. When writing on paper, we can easily write the "10" and the raised exponent (as a superscript), and we can also do this when using a word-processing application, but it's not always possible in a plain-text editor - e.g. I'm not sure how to do it in the "Ice In Space" forum editor.

The "E" notation was developed in the 1950s or 1960s, when computer input terminals and punched cards only had the basic ASCII character-set - no Greek symbols, no "WingDings" or emojis, and no superscripts or subscripts, etc. It's still widely used today, because it can be printed or displayed unambiguously on any printer or device screen - and most people with a basic maths education know how to read it.

Try entering a very large or very small number in Excel, and you'll see it expressed using the "E" notation.

[LewisM]

Originally Posted by leon

Ok, that is all fine but surly it could have been written in a less complicated way, just saying

Leon

Surly? Surely that means you are cranky about it? Surely not. Dose it? (maybe it does)


Edumakated me isn't

[Zuts]

Originally Posted by LewisM

Surly? Surely that means you are cranky about it? Surely not. Dose it? (maybe it does)


Edumakated me isn't

Four years ago I couldn't even spell enjineer, now I are one

Graffiti seen in Monash Uni Engineering toilet cubicle.....

[leon]

Well a lot of fun had at my expense, again I will never live this computer stuff down, will I, and just to let you all know I have a new secondhand excellent Win 10 desktop, with compliments of our friend Alex, so there

Have a nice day guys

Leon

[Pepper (Steve)]

Originally Posted by leon

Well a lot of fun had at my expense, again I will never live this computer stuff down, will I, and just to let you all know I have a new secondhand excellent Win 10 desktop, with compliments of our friend Alex, so there

Have a nice day guys

Leon

Haha. It’s only a matter of time Leon!

[JA]

Originally Posted by Bart

Can some one please explain how I read or interpret a number, e.g. for processing given as weight, of 8.7638e+01?

Hi Bart,

It's as others have said, 8.7638 multiplied by 10 to the power of 1 (or exponent 1), which equals 87.638. The e is for exponent typically to the usual base 10. It's use is more of one that has grown from its use in earlier programming languages, rather than pure mathematics per se. Unfortunately on most modern keyboards it can't be typed as easily as you can write it.....


In mathematics e, sometimes called Euler's number is an irrational number constant and the base of the natural logarithm, roughly equal to a constant of around 2.718.... . Whilst it's understood in the above example based on context to be as suggested above, I think if you need to write an exponent using a non superscripting device like a typical modern keyboard, that it's better to write it using the circumflex or caret symbol ^. It suggests "pointing up" and so is perhaps a little more intuitive and allows one to specify the base, in this case base 10. In your example it would read..... 8.736 x10^1.

Using the caret/circumflex symbol is better as it wont be potentially confused with e, the base of the natural logarithm/Euler's number. Of course there's no substitute for the clarity of superscript version as written above. You can do it with superscripting in most word processors / formulae editors. What's interesting is that on ye olde typewriters you could do a half line shift upwards and then type the exponent.

Best
JA

[leon]

Wow JA you are cleverer than me, and i am still confused, we didn't do math like that when i was a kid.

But that was along time ago, some 60 years.

Leon

[Hans Tucker (Hans)]

Originally Posted by LewisM

Surly? Surely that means you are cranky about it? Surely not. Dose it? (maybe it does)


Edumakated me isn't

https://youtu.be/WvCQ80Brkw0


https://youtu.be/KM2K7sV-K74

[TrevorW]

https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/...converter.html

[Bart]

LOL! Thanks everyone, that really helps.



I wish we had a like button, there were a few comments that were quite funny.



Poor Leon, you do cop a bit, hey!

[raymo]

Don't put yourself down Leon. JA is not necessarily any cleverer than you. He obviously was taught a higher level of maths than you [and many other people], but maybe for whatever reason, you never had the opportunity to undertake the same level of schooling.
raymo

[Steffen]

Originally Posted by gary

Try writing down 9.28304823e+97 long hand and then come back to us and
let us know which is the least complicated.

Haha Gary, you made me wonder about the significance of that number. It certainly is many magnitudes above the estimated number of particles (quarks) in the universe