Okay, so this probably isn't a shock to anyone else but me, but somehow I missed that an E can stand in for a ^ when denoting the superscript part of the notation. How did I miss that, all these years?
I am flabbergasted! What's up with that, educational system? I am sad! I don't like having these empty spots in my knowledge.
I went looking online for a good example of this mysterious E, and it took me a bit to find an example, so I'm wondering if perhaps it isn't quite as common, really.
I copied the following from http://www.nyu.edu/pages/mathmol/textbook/scinot.html , to show as an example:
0.000001 sec. or 1.0E-6 or 1.0^-6
Did everyone know about the E, or is it ^ all the way?
You know, as a kid I enjoyed adding and multiplying very large and very small numbers on a calculator looking for interesting answers (yeah, I was the kind who read the dictionary for fun too), and I remember getting results with that E notation and being very confused. I probably could have figured it out if I'd done some problems on paper to compare.
ReplyDeleteShoved that mysterious E to the back of my head and forgot about it all until now. Thank you for filling that gap!
No problem! :) Mysteries are meant to be solved! I hadn't even thought about that E being on the calculator!
ReplyDeleteI loved playing with the calculator, too. Except, i always liked the ones best where you could punch in the numbers, turn the display upside down, and you had *words*.