What does “Extended Notation” mean in math?
My son was asked to write a number in “extended notation” on a test yesterday, in fourth grade. He didn’t know what it was, and my wife and I have never heard of it. I found a couple sites (here and here) that mention it, but no definition. The number was something like 407,363, not a round number.
Extended notation is where you have a number M, followed by the letter e, followed by an integer P. M is the mantissa, and has one digit to the left of the decimal point, and an arbitrary number of digits to the right. P is an integer (possibly negative) that specifies what power of ten needs to be multiplied by M to get the original number. E.g., -407,363 -> -4.07363e5, 0.00392 -> 3.92e-3, etc.
I believe extended notation is meant as expressing the number using powers of ten.
For example: 407,363
(4 x 100,000) + (0 x 10,000) + (7 x 1,000) + (3 x 100) + (6 x 10) + (3 x 1)
It is exactly the same number, just ‘extended’.
“Extended notation” doesn’t mean anything in math. It means something in arithmetic classes.
What you describe is a form of Scientific Notation, but I’ve never heard the term Extended Notation used to refer to it.
I think ZaLucky1 has it. You ought to be able to look through your son’s textbook or past worksheets for examples. Tests rarely pull new terms out of the blue.
I was stuck doing the extension thing back in the fourth grade in '64. It was a core part of “New Math”. Cue laugh track.
Does his teacher have a website or email address? I’m sure they’d be willing to answer the question.
Arithmetic class is exactly what this 4th grader is in. He is learning how math works.
As per what Yllaria said, looking in his text book or his notes will clue you in most definately, whether or not I happen to be right.
Amen to this.
I seem to recall seeing a textbook use “extended notation” to refer to a number just written out normally, with all its digits, as opposed to scientific notation. But I could be wrong, and even if I’m not, this isn’t necessarily standard.
We’ve asked him to ask his teacher, or look it up in his math book (I think this stays at school most of the time so I can’t look it up myself), but there’s no guarentee he will. Also, this was on a statewide test, so it may not have been in any homework he had.
From the diverse responses here, it sounds like the term doesn’t have a standard meaning.
Thanks everyone (except Mathochist).
That’s exactly the content of my statment: there isn’t a universal definition, so the term must have been defined within the context of the class.
Ah, statewide standardized testing - - you have my sympathies. I used to do temp work grading those things. Thinking about it puts me into Marvin the Paranoid Android mode.
Tests. Don’t talk to me about tests.