Question

An egg of a certain kind of insect called a Tachinidae is 0.00002 meters

Answer 1

The length in scientific notation is $2 \times 10^{-5}$ meters

Solution:

Given that egg of a certain kind of insect called a Tachinidae is 0.00002 meters long

To find: length in scientific notation

Given length in meters = 0.00002 meters

Let us understand about scientific notation

Scientific notation is a mathematical expression used to represent a decimal number between 1 and 10 multiplied by ten, so you can write large numbers using less digits

Rules for scientific notation:

Move the decimal point in your number until there is only one non-zero digit to the left of the decimal point. The resulting decimal number is a.

Count how many places you moved the decimal point. This number is b.

If you moved the decimal to the left b is positive.

If you moved the decimal to the right b is negative.

If you did not need to move the decimal b = 0.

Write your scientific notation number as a x 10^b and read it as "a times 10 to the power of b."

Remove trailing 0's only if they were originally to the left of the decimal point.

Converting 0.00002 meters to scientific notation:

Here we move the decimal point to right side. Move the decimal point 5 times so that only "2" is present to left of decimal point

Since decimal point is moved to right, the exponent 5 is negative(-5)

$\rightarrow 2 \times 10^{-5}$

Thus the length in scientific notation is $2 \times 10^{-5}$ meters