scientific notation is a way of writing numbers so that they are numbers between 1 and 10 multiplied by a power of ten.
exponent rules are easily used in this set up because x^a * x^b = X^(a+b)
and (x^a)/(x^b)= x^(a-b)
10^3 x 10^5 = 10*8
one may evaluate everything but the powers of ten until the the end and then multiply by the simplification
this system is used to scale quantities that are either too massive or too miniscule to be easily understood.
ex) 1234 in scientific notation is 1.234 x 10^3
ex) .04561 in scientific notation is 4.561 x 10^(-2)