SCIENTIFIC NOTATION PRACTICE
For each number, write the number in scientific notation:
1. There are about 27000000000000 red blood cells in your body.
2. It is 384000000 meters from the earth to the Moon.
3. Americans drink 146000000000 cups of coffee per year.
4. You have about 252000000 photoreceptors in your eyes.
5. A mosquito weighs 0.0000000000234 times as much as an elephant.
6. A cold virus is 0.00000000323 meters long.
7. The sun weighs 46200000000000000000000000000000 pounds.
8. The closest planet to the earth is Mars and it is 56000000000 meters away.
SO FAR, SO FAST
Fill in the blanks with the correct scientific notation:
Scientific measurements indicate that we are moving even when we are standing still.
The surface of the earth at the equator rotates at about 1,000 (___________) miles per hour.
The earth is orbiting the sun at about 67,000 (__________) miles per hour. Our solar system
whirls around the center of our galaxy at 490,000 (__________) miles per hour. It zooms along
at 43,000 (__________) miles per house in the direction of the star Vega in the constellation
Lyra. But that’s not all. Our Milky Way galaxy is hurling through space at 1.3 million
(___________) miles per hour.
Population of the Continents
Continent Population
Asia 3,031,000,000
Europe 684,000,000
Africa 615,000,000
North America 413,000,000
South America 282,200,000
Oceania/Australia 25,500,000
Antarctica 0
Convert the population of the continents to scientific notation:
Continents Population in scientific notation
Asia 1.
Europe 2.
Africa 3.
North America 4.
South America 5.
Oceania/Australia 6.
Antarctica 7.
Use the population estimates in the table as needed. Then write out your answer in scientific notation:
8. About how may more people are in Europe than in South America?
9. The population of Asia was predicted to be 4 billion in the year 2000. About how much of an increase
was expected?
10. Suppose the population of each continent doubled. Express the population of each continent in scientific
notation.
Continent Expected population Scientific notation
Asia
Europe
Africa
North America
South America
Oceania/Australia
Antarctica
11. Describe a method you can use to multiply a number in scientific notation by 2.
1. In 1997 The Boeing Corporation sold five 777s to China for a cost of $685 million dollars. (a) Write
685 million dollars in scientific notation. (b) What was the cost of a single Boeing 777? Write your
answer in scientific notation.
2. Light travels at a speed of miles per second. A light year is the distance the light travels
in one year. Determine the number of miles in a light year. Write your answer in scientific notation.
3. Earth is approximately 93,000,000 miles from the sun. How long does it take light from the sun to
reach the earth?
4. In the US national debt is now around $8.819 × 1012. The population of the US is about 3.02 ×
108. If everyone in the country were to pay an equal share of the debt how much would each
person owe?
5. An average person takes about 17,000 breaths each day. How many breaths per year is that (365
days in a year)?
6. A lottery payout of $40,000,000 will be paid in annual installments over the course of 30 years.
How much is paid per year?
7. How many quarters would you need to reach the earth's moon if you were to stack them, one on
top of each other, beginning at the earth's surface? The earth's moon is approximately 240,000
miles from the earth and a quarter is approximately 0.0625 inch thick.
8. If you laid sheets of standard typing paper (8.5’ x 11’), end-to-end (length = 11’), starting at New
York City, NY and ending at San Francisco, CA, how many sheets of paper would it take to link
the two cities having a distance of approximately 4,000 miles? (Hint: one mile = 63,360 inches)
9. Phil Durt is planning to sew orchard grass seed on 2.75 acres of his ranch. In order to purchase
the seed, he must know the area measured in square feet. If there are 43,560 square feet in one
acre, how many square feet are there in Phil’s 2.75 acres?
10. Cement used to make concrete is packaged in bags weighing 80 pounds. The bags are shipped
on pallets holding 64 bags each. If a warehouse has stored 250 pallets of cement, how many total
pounds of cement do they have in storage ready for shipment?
11. In a military galley, one soup pot can hold 32 gallons. If each person receives 10.5 ounces per
serving, how many complete servings can be served out of two soup pots? (Hint: one gallon =
128 ounces)
12. Dudley Smirnoff is secretly constructing a miniature spacecraft that will carry a spy satellite
receiver to the moon. It will be stationed on the moon to intercept communication from other
orbiting satellites. Even though, the spacecraft is a miniature “high tech” machine, it does travel
slowly. The spacecraft only travels at 5,800 miles per hour. If the moon is 240,000 miles from the
earth, how long will it take Dudley’s craft to reach the moon’s surface?
13. A small container holds approximately 584,000 grains of coarse sand. Lily purchased 18
containers of coarse sand for her gardening activities. She has already used 2.5 containers. How
many grains of coarse sand does she have left to use in her gardening activities?
14. The US Census 2000 data states that the population of West Virginia was approximately
1,800,000. If the area of West Virginia is approximately 24,000 square miles, what is the average
number of people per square mile?
15. What is the ratio of Milky Way radius to our solar system radius given that, the distance from Pluto
to the sun is 5.9×10 12 meters and the Milky Way disk radius is. 3.9×1020 meters. Round the
coefficient to the nearest tenth.
16. As of Jan. 1999, the fastest computer in the world, called the Blue Pacific located at the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory in Ca. could perform a single calculation in about
0.00000000000026 second (twenty-six hundred trillionths of a second). How long would it take
this computer to do 7 billion calculations?
17.
The speed of light is 3 x 10 8 meters / second. If the sun is 1.5x 1011 meters from earth, how many
seconds does it take light to reach the Earth.