Randall,

You want the nth root and you are doing it correctly, but have a false assumption (the 10th root of 100 is NOT 2). I showed how to derive 10^x = 100, which is more relevant to scientific notation. Scientific notation does not involve taking the 10th root of a number, which I why I figure you are confused.

Example: 2,098,000 = 2.098 x 10 ^ 6

No 10th roots involved, in fact you can just count digits.

Not confused by what i mean.  How do i get the nth root of a number?

-----Original Message-----
From: "Brian Yennie" <[email protected]>
To: "How to use Revolution" <[email protected]>
Sent: 4/20/2009 5:03 PM
Subject: Re: convert to scientific notation

Randall,

I think you are confusing two different concepts.

10^2 = 100, not 2^10 = 100.

What you want is something like this:

Step 1) 10^x = 100
Step 2) log 10^x = log 100
Step 3) x log 10 = log 100
Step 4) x = log 100 / log 10

In short, you need to use logarithms and you'll get a formula where x
= log y / log z.

If you were trying to solve x^10 = 100, then you could do what you
suggest and just raise both side to the (1/10)th power. But that
number will not be 2 -- it's about 1.58.


I can't remember how to use power function "^" to find the nth root
of a number.  To find the 2ndth root of a number we can use the
"sqrt()" function.  But to find the nth root????

For instance, lets say I want to convert a number to scientific
notation (the 10th root of that number)... I used to know how to use
the power function to do this.  Anyone remember how to do it?

I tried to get the 10th root (scientific notation) of 100  (which
should = 2) by:     100^(1/10) ... but that isn't it.

Any ideas?  I feel brain dead.

Randall

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---
Brian Yennie
QLD Learning
(310)-367-7364


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