Engineering notation

Engineering notation or engineering form (also technical notation) is a version of scientific notation in which the exponent of ten is always selected to be divisible by three to match the common metric prefixes, i.e. scientific notation that aligns with powers of a thousand, for example, 531×10³ instead of 5.31×10⁵ (but on calculator displays written without the ×10 to save space). As an alternative to writing powers of 10, SI prefixes can be used,^[1] which also usually provide steps of a factor of a thousand.^{[nb 1]} On most calculators, engineering notation is called "ENG" mode as scientific notation is denoted SCI.

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