lesson
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What happens when you keep multiplying by 10? One block becomes a row of 10, then a flat sheet of 100, and soon a giant cube of 1,000!
Every time you multiply by 10, the digit shifts one place to the left into a larger place value, adding a zero to the end.
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Writing out 10×10×10×10×10 takes a lot of time and space. Is there a shorter math shortcut to write this?
The Power of Exponents
An exponent is a small number floating in the top-right corner that tells you how many times to multiply the main number by itself.
When the main number is 10, we call it a power of 10. For example, 103 means 10×10×10, which equals 1,000.
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What happens when we look at bigger numbers like 500 or 70,000? Can we write those using powers of 10 too?
Writing Multiples of 10
A multiple of 10 is any number made by multiplying a starting number by 10, 100, 1,000, or even more.
To write 4,000 with a power of 10, first split it into 4×1,000. Since 1,000 has 3 zeros, it is 103, so 4,000=4×103.
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