Question

Simplify and express the answer in scientific notation: 6.26 x 10-4 - 12.52 x 10-8

Answer 1

To subtract, we have to put them both into same powers of 10.

Let's change first number to power of -8.

$6.26\times10^{-4}=62600\times10^{-8}$

Now we subtract the number and tag along a 10 to the power -8.

So,

$\begin{gathered} 62600\times10^{-8}-12.52\times10^{-8} \\ =62587.48\times10^{-8} \end{gathered}$

In proper scientific notation, it will be

$6.258748\times10^{-4}$