E Notation

Why is it important

E notation, also known as scientific notation, is a method of representing numbers that are too large or too small to be conveniently written in decimal form. It allows to represent and perform calculations on large numbers using basic math.

Example where it should have been used

In this short Joe Rogan with this guest, perform a calculation of how much would it take to give basic income to everyone in USA.

They take 200K and 300M people and arrive to 40-billion dollars proceeding to discuss how reasonable that would be.

Such calculation is completely incorrect. And could have been much better addressed (with less cannabis) and also using scientific notation.

Simplifying math in above example

The math in this example can be quite simple:

Convert to e notation:

• 200K = 2*10^5 = 2e5 = 2 with 5 zeros
• 300M = 3*10^8 = 3e8 = 3 with 8 zeros

Perform the math:

• Now we multiply 2*3 = 6
• Now we add up the zeros 5+8 = 13

We get:

6e13 = 6*10^13 = 6 with 13 zeros

Convert into trillion units

Now to make it into trillions. We can reconstruct the e notation (how many zeros per unit): thousands(3)->millions(6)->billions(9)->trillions(12)

Now to transfer our number into unit of trillions simply subtract 12 from 13. Leading to 6e1 trillions (6 with 1 zero trillions), or simply 60 trillions.

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