Talk:Engineering notation

Speed of light example

Some people express the speed of light as 3e8 m/s, but I hesitate to add that to the already rather turgid discussion on the main article. --Eric Forste 07:50, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Engineering notation and precision

I prefer to use engineering notation on my computer for the simple fact that SI prefixes match perfectly with it. For instance, a number like 9.65 × 10⁴ C/mol (coulombs per mole) would be better written as 96.5 kC/mol. When I see the calculator display 96.5e3, I can better comprehend that number than 9.65e4. I'm not from Japan or China, after all, where they do traditionally go by sets of 4 digits. For instance, they would traditionally say that the speed of light is 3,0000,0000 meters per second. And as for that, that number is too large to comprehend whether it is displayed as .300 × 10⁹ or as it is commonly, 3.00 × 10⁸. The important element here is that the precision needs to be indicated, and it needs to be legible. Wherever engineering notation supports the precision part of it, it should be used, because it always is–to me–more legible. --D. F. Schmidt (talk) 09:29, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Indian Hindu system

Comment from article that I moved to the talk page: --(unsigned) 2006-07-12T22:59:49‎ User:Pjvpjv

Ancient Indians Hindu system of Mathematics has surprisingly Raise of 10 to 53 places!!!

Raising 10 to the Power of 53

The highest prefix used for raising 10 to a power in today’s maths is ‘D’ for 10 to a power of 30 (from Greek Deca). While, as early as 100 BCE Indian Mathematicians had exact names for figures upto 10 to the power of 53.

• ekam =1
• dashakam =10
• shatam =100 (10 to the power of 10)
• sahasram =1000 (10 power of 3)
• dashasahasram =10000 (10 power of 4)
• lakshaha =100000 (10 power of 5)
• dashalakshaha =1000000 (10 power of 6)
• kotihi =10000000 (10 power of 7)
• ayutam =1000000000 (10 power of 9)
• niyutam = (10 power of 11)
• kankaram = (10 power of 13)
• vivaram = (10 power of 15)
• paraardhaha = (10 power of 17)
• nivahaaha = (10 power of 19)
• utsangaha = (10 power of 21)
• bahulam = (10 power of 23)
• naagbaalaha = (10 power of 25)
• titilambam = (10 power of 27)
• vyavasthaana

• pragnaptihi = (10 power of 29)
• hetuheelam = (10 power of 31)
• karahuhu = (10 power of 33)
• hetvindreeyam = (10 power of 35)
• samaapta lambhaha = (10 power of 37)
• gananaagatihi) = (10 power of 39)
• niravadyam = (10 power of 41)
• mudraabaalam = (10 power of 43)
• sarvabaalam = (10 power of 45)
• vishamagnagatihi = (10 power of 47)
• sarvagnaha = (10 power of 49)
• vibhutangamaa = (10 power of 51)
• tallaakshanam = (10 power of 53)

(In Anuyogdwaar Sutra written in 100 BCE one numeral is raised as high as 10 to the power of 140).

--(unsigned) 2005-10-27T18:50:27‎ 69.57.238.121

good table .. but should perhaps be in Decimal. What has it to do with Engineering Notation?

(unsigned) 2005-10-27T20:36:44‎ User:Mfc

I agree, it might have a place in another article (on numbers), but it has nothing to do with engineering notation. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:49, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Usage of u instead of micro

Discussion of using u instead of micro would be useful.

2001:4898:80E0:EE43:0:0:0:4 (talk) 15:57, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

This could be (and probably is) discussed in the Metric prefix article, but it does not belong into the engineering notation article.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:49, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

References, excess columns and rows

See User:Edison/Template:Engineering notation prefixes, a proposed table to replace the one used in this article. This article does not cite a physics or engineering textbook to the effect that this terminology is common. I have seen a lot of math notation by engineers, but have not seen this obsession with having the number 1000 raised to positive and negative powers. Instead, it is 10 which is raised to positive of negative powers. "Engineering notation" which sticks to multiples of 1000 is fine, but it is implicit in the tables shown in the references I cite below.The table is supposed to be the multiples of 10 used in engineering notation, but then it includes 10², 10¹,10^-1, and 10^-2, which should be removed. The refs also do not find it necessary to state what year each symbol or prefix was "invented." Books on science cover engineering notation, but they speak of sticking to the 10⁶, 10³, the plain number with no powers of ten coefficient, 10^-3, 10^-6, etc., without showing 1000 raised to every possible power. I propose we remove the column with 1000 raised to each power, and that we remove the column with a date for the number, since it clutters the table and distracts the reader. The column with "trilliardth"etc looks silly, as has been noted in the AFD for the article on "very small numbers, and scientists are more likely to use engineering notation or scientific notation than to state things in "septillionths." Then the article would conform to Herrick, Noll, Brumbach, Stephan and countless others. Edison (talk) 03:07, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the Base-1000 column is very important in the context of engineering notation. It helps a lot to illustrate the system. Those columns about large and short scales at the very right end of the table are off-topic in the context of this article, though.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 11:41, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Addressed by usage of local table without large/short scale and year of introduction columns.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:00, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Layout

I swear it seems like the author of this article has beef with engineers... shouldn't most of the article be about what engineering notation IS, who uses it, and why it's used, as opposed to taking up the entire article with one criticism of the notation repeated like three separate times? I mean nothing wrong with that, but condense it (seriously, multiple examples are not necessary) and add in some positives to it, really. 129.67.120.145 (talk) 21:33, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Metric System

Metric prefixes are irrelevant to this article. Please remove the table entirely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.224.118.215 (talk) 01:39, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Hm, hecto, deca, deci and centi are off-topic in the context of this article. However, the other SI prefixes are top-relevant in regard to engineering notation. So, removing the table would be a very bad idea.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 11:41, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Addressed by usage of local table without hecto, deca, deci and centi rows.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:00, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

HP

As far as I know, engineering notation originated with the display modes of some HP calculators. Is there a reference to a good source of where it came from? It is convenient sometimes, for example when electrical components are measured in microfarads or megohms. Gah4 (talk) 23:01, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I've added some info about the history. There are, however, still a few open questions:

• Origin of the term "engineering notation"? It is used in the HP-25 (1975) documentation as well as in Peter D. Dickinson's patent, filed in 1975, issued in 1976. It is not used in the cited HP Journal article series (1969). However, Dickinson's patent uses the term without introducing it - just as if it would have been already established at this time.
• I list three TI models (SR-40, TI-30, TI-45) supporting the EE↓ feature. Have there been any other TI models supporting this feature?
• Have there been Casio calculators before the FX-502P (1978) supporting the ENG shifting mode?
• It is a bit strange that Commodore and TI stopped supporting the exponent shift feature at about the same time when Casio introduced a very similar feature and implemented it into many calculators ever since. This might indicate some patent / licensing issue. Does anybody know the background?

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 11:33, 7 June 2017 (UTC)