Talk:Engineering notation

Some people express the speed of light as 3e8 m/s, but I hesitate to add that to the already rather turgid discussion on the main article. --Eric Forste 07:50, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

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I prefer to use engineering notation on my computer for the simple fact that SI prefixes match perfectly with it. For instance, a number like 9.65 × 10⁴ C/mol (coulombs per mole) would be better written as 96.5 kC/mol. When I see the calculator display 96.5e3, I can better comprehend that number than 9.65e4. I'm not from Japan or China, after all, where they do traditionally go by sets of 4 digits. For instance, they would traditionally say that the speed of light is 3,0000,0000 meters per second. And as for that, that number is too large to comprehend whether it is displayed as .300 × 10⁹ or as it is commonly, 3.00 × 10⁸. The important element here is that the precision needs to be indicated, and it needs to be legible. Wherever engineering notation supports the precision part of it, it should be used, because it always is–to me–more legible. --D. F. Schmidt (talk) 09:29, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

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Comment from article that I moved to the talk page:

good table .. but should perhaps be in Decimal. What has it to do with Engineering Notation?

Ancient Indians Hindu system of Mathematics has surprisingly Raise of 10 to 53 places!!! Raising 10 to the Power of 53

The highest prefix used for raising 10 to a power in today’s maths is ‘D’ for 10 to a power of 30 (from Greek Deca). While, as early as 100 BCE Indian Mathematicians had exact names for figures upto 10 to the power of 53.

ekam =1 dashakam =10 shatam =100 (10 to the power of 10) sahasram =1000 (10 power of 3) dashasahasram =10000 (10 power of 4) lakshaha =100000 (10 power of 5) dashalakshaha =1000000 (10 power of 6) kotihi =10000000 (10 power of 7) ayutam =1000000000 (10 power of 9) niyutam = (10 power of 11) kankaram = (10 power of 13) vivaram = (10 power of 15) paraardhaha = (10 power of 17) nivahaaha = (10 power of 19) utsangaha = (10 power of 21) bahulam = (10 power of 23) naagbaalaha = (10 power of 25) titilambam = (10 power of 27) vyavasthaana

pragnaptihi = (10 power of 29) hetuheelam = (10 power of 31) karahuhu = (10 power of 33) hetvindreeyam = (10 power of 35) samaapta lambhaha = (10 power of 37) gananaagatihi) = (10 power of 39) niravadyam = (10 power of 41) mudraabaalam = (10 power of 43) sarvabaalam = (10 power of 45) vishamagnagatihi = (10 power of 47) sarvagnaha = (10 power of 49) vibhutangamaa = (10 power of 51) tallaakshanam = (10 power of 53)

(In Anuyogdwaar Sutra written in 100 BCE one numeral is raised as high as 10 to the power of 140).

References, inconsistency

This article does not cite a physics or engineering textbook to the effect that this terminology is common. I have seen a lot of math notation by engineers, but have not seen this obsession with having the number 1000 raised to positive and negative powers. Instead, it is 10 which is raised to positive of negative powers. Then the article says that there must be multiples of three zeros, but proceeds to include every non-three-zero power of ten with its SI name. Books on science cover engineering notation, but they speak of sticking to the 10⁶, 10³, the plain number with no powers of ten coefficient, 10^-3, 10^-6, etc., without 1000 raised to every possible power. I propose we remove the powers of ten in the table which do not correspond to the powers used in engineering notation, that we remove as well the column with 1000 raise to each power. Then the article would conform to Herrick, Noll, Brumbach, Stephan and countless others. Edison (talk) 03:07, 12 March 2011 (UTC)