Question

Charles is reading about computers. He learns that a computer processor can perform one command in approximately 0.000000016 nanoseconds. What is this number expressed in scientific notation? there are multiple answers on this problem.
1.6E-8
1.6 × 10-7
1.6 × 10-8
1.6E-7
1.6 × 108
1.6E8
1.6 × 107
1.6E7

Answer 1

1.6E-8 and 1.6 × 10-8

Answer 2

To convert our number to scientific notation, we are going to move the decimal point to the right until we have only one non-zero digit to the left of the decimal point, and then, we are going to multiply that number by a negative power of 10 equal to the number of times we moved the decimal point to the right:

Our number is 0.000000016, so we need to move the decimal point 8 times to the right to have only one non-zero digit to the left of the decimal point (1.6). Since we moved the decimal point eight times to the right, we are going to multiply 1.6 by y a negative power of 10 equal to the number of times we moved the decimal point to the right i.e. $10^{-8}$.
So 0.000000016 expressed in scientific notation is 1.6x$10^-8$, or in calculator notation 1.6E-8

We can conclude that the correct answers are 1.6E-8 and 1.6 × 10-8