Engineering Notation

Overview

Engineering notation provides a way to easily talk about very big and very small numbers. For example, instead of saying your computer runs at 2,800,000,000 Hertz, you can say it runs at 2.8 gigahertz. At the other end of the spectrum, instead of saying the wavelength of red light is .000000620 meters, you can say it is 620 nanometers.

The Units

Below is a table that includes a range of engineering prefixes that you are likely to need in your work.

Engineering Prefixes

Prefix	Abbreviation	Multiplier	Decimal places
Mega	M	x 1000000	Move 6 left
Kilo	K	x 1000	Move 3 left
Milli	m	x .001	Move 3 right
Micro	u	x .000001	Move 6 right
Nano	n	x .000000001	Move 9 right
Pico	p	x .000000000001	Move 12 right

Unit Conversions

In order to convert from one unit to another, you need to move the decimal place to the right or left. Below are some examples.

3Kg   =       3000g
5ms   =       .005s
34uV  =       .034mV
23Mc  =       23000Kc

Challenge

Convert the following to the specified units. Place your answers in your notebook. As always, make sure to include units when you write any number.

26ms    to seconds
4.5Khz  to Hertz
.003s   to milliseconds
2.34mv  to Volts

TEACHER CHECK ____