How do I write 50,000,000 as a product of 5 and a power of 10?

Hi Foxhouse...

I can't just outright give you the answer... and I can't give you a better or easier answer than you'll find at this link:

Scientific notation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_notation)

When finished reading this you should appreciate the time saved using this type of notation.

For fun, would you be nice enough to pop back and show me the answer to your question?

Thanks...

Mark

One simple way is using factors.

50 000 000 = 5 x 10 000 000

right?

So, now, count the number of zeros in '10 000 000' There are 7. So, you write it as:

50 000 000 = 5 \times 10^7

Now, I'm considering only one significant figure. If you are working with more, you'll need to know how many significant figures to use.