Article
Article
Exponent
Article By:
Lowan, Arnold N. Formerly, Department of Physics, Yeshiva University, New York, New York.
Bochner, Salomon Formerly, Department of Mathematics, Rice University, Houston, Texas.
Last reviewed:June 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.248800
In mathematics, a symbol or number written to the right of and above another symbol or number to denote how many times the latter is to be multiplied by itself. For example, 73 = 7 · 7 · 7, and a3 = a · a · a. By use of this convenient mathematical device, the number 420,000,000,000,000 can be expressed unmistakably and more compactly as 4.2 × 1014, which is read as, “four and two-tenths times ten to the fourteenth power.” This abbreviated notation is particularly valuable in expressing the extremely large or extremely small numbers encountered in modern scientific work. For example, 0.000000143 may be expressed as
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