Negative Exponents and Standard Form

Core concept

For example, 2^-2 = 1/2² = 1/4, and the speed of light (approximately 300,000,000 m/s) is written in standard form as 3 × 10⁸ m/s, far more compact than writing all the zeros. Standard form is especially valuable in science, where quantities can range from the incredibly vast (distances between galaxies) to the incredibly tiny (sizes of atoms), and writing these out in full would be impractical and error-prone.