You know how decimals are really long to write, like 0.00000000089? Well, with scientific notation, you can shorten them. Take the decimal I wrote for instance. Using scientific notation, I can change it to 8.9 * 10^-10. The decimal is shortened, and according to the exponent, 10^-10, we move the decimal place for 8.9 to the left ten places, leaving us with 0.00000000089.
