Standard Form

From: Vicki Hopgood
Date: 16 Feb 1999

I recently had a question that read:

Express 70³ in standard form

Is this a trick question? The number is already in standard form, isn't it?

This is not a trick question! The number 70³ is not in standard form.

70³ is read "Seventy to the power three". It means

70 × 70 × 70

which is equal to 343 000

A number in standard form looks like this:

A × 10ⁿ

Where A is a number between 1 and 10,
and n is a positive or negative whole number

So the number 343 000 in standard form is

3.43 × 10⁵

Your calculator may show this as 3.43⁰³ but this is just calculator shorthand. You should not copy this down.

Instead, you should write the standard form number as 3.43 × 10³ to be correct.