Notation

Auto is the default notation if you use significant figures in the Precision setting. Auto notation chooses the best format for each value type: most numbers are shown without changes, but very big or small ones are shown in scientific notation. Decimal trailing zeros are removed too.

If you use p significant digits as precision, the floating number x will be shown in scientific notation when x>10p or x<10-p. Note that this does not apply to integer numbers.

Decimal notation is like Auto but never shows scientific notation. Note that this notation can produce numbers with lots of digits. For example, you will see 1.·10⁹⁹in the Algorithm, but you will actually get a long number of hundred digits.

This is the only option when working with decimal places as precision.

Scientific notation always shows numbers in normalized scientific notation, also called exponential notation. The precision number here means significant digits of the mantissa to show.

Consider 6.023·10²³ as the correct answer. By default, the only accepted notation is 6.023·10²³. If you want to allow students to answer in other formats, you must check the Computer scientific notation option in the Input options section. This way 6.023E23 and 6.023e23 is also accepted.