what is a number written in scientific notation
General Formula of Scientific Notation. The general from of a number in scientific notation is: a Ã10 n where 1 â¤ a â¤ 10 and n is an integer. In other words the number that we'll call a is is multiplied by 10, raised to some exponent n. This number a must be no smaller than 1 and no larger than 10.