Writing Scientific Notation: Alternatives to mx10n

[zachfoltz]

So all my life I have disliked writing in scientific notation's notation as mx10ⁿ where m and n are constants, because it looks indistinguishable from m times x times 10 to the n power. Alternatively it looks like the cross product of m and 10^n, which makes little sense because m and n are not vectors. Calculators and programs tend to display numbers in "calculator notation" meⁿ or mEⁿ, which looks like m times Euler's constant to the n power or m times a variable E to the n.

My question is aside from m(10ⁿ) which I have never seen anyone write it as, is there an accepted way of writing values in scientific notation that doesn't require the use of symbols or letters that can or do already mean something?

 

[phinds]

nEm is probably the closest you'll find.

 

[zachfoltz]

That has the same issue that E could be mistaken for a variable.

 

[HallsofIvy]

Do you know of any symbols that don't " already mean something"? It certainly not unusual for symbols to have different meanings in different situations- you just have learn their use. And, in fact, it is very unusual to use "x" to indicate multiplication in anything other than basic arithmetic! It is more common, in algebra and above, to use parentheses (which would be confused with your suggested "m(10ⁿ"!) or, occasionally, "*", adopted from computer languages.

 

[Pythagorean]

often you scale your units by using the magnitude prefix (centi,milli,micro,etc) to avoid writing magnitude numerically.

 

[eigenperson]

So all my life I have disliked writing in scientific notation's notation as mx10ⁿ where m and n are constants, because it looks indistinguishable from m times x times 10 to the n power.

You could always write $m \cdot 10^n$. I don't believe anyone will find that confusing.

 

[SteamKing]

Euler's constant is always written lower case 'e' and is never capitalized.