Introductory Electrical Engineering With Math Explained in Accessible Language

1Scientific Method: General Concepts

1.1 Introduction

In this chapter, we will examine the scientific method and its concepts. These concepts must be well understood and are fundamental to achieve a solid foundation in electrical engineering.

1.2 Powers of 10

In science it is common to represent numbers like 100, 1000, and 10000, as 10², 10³, and 10⁴, respectively, in what is called powers of ten.

Powers of 10 show how many times 10 has to be multiplied by itself to obtain the final value.

In other words,

is equal to 10 multiplied by itself 4 times.

However, if we want to represent very small numbers like 0.1, 0.01, and 0.001, we have to use negative exponents, as 10⁻¹, 10⁻², 10⁻³, respectively.

This negative exponent represents how many times the number must be divided by 10.

Numbers like

10⁻¹, 10⁻², 10⁻³ represent

1/10, 1/100, 1/100, respectively.

Any number raised to 0 is equal to 1. Thus, 10⁰ = 1.

1.3 Roots

Roots are the inverse operation of powers.

Roots are expressed in scientific notation as a fractional exponent:

Any number raised to a fractional exponent ...