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As an alternative for writing powers of 10, SI Prefix es can be used. These also provides steps of a factor 1000, except if the unit has an exponent: in that case the SI prefixes provide only steps of a factor one million, one billion, or more. A disadvantage both of using an SI prefix and of using engineering notation, compared with scientific notation, is that e.g. 500 µm and m do not show the accuracy distinction between , , and m. That can be solved by not using a range 1–1000 for the number in front of the power, but a number in the range 0.01–10. Depending on the case this may be suitable, or impractical. In the example we can use 0.5, 0.50, and 0.500 mm. Another example: when the Speed Of Light is expressed as m/s or km/s then it is clear that it is between 299 500 and 300 500 km/s, but when using 300 × 106 m/s, or 300 × 103 km/s, 300 000 km/s, or the unusual but short 300 Mm/s, this is not clear. A possibility is using 0.300 Gm/s, convenient to write, but somewhat impractical in understanding (writing something large as a fraction of something even larger; in a context of larger numbers expressed in the same unit this could be convenient, but that is not applicable here). SEE ALSO |
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