High School

Light travels at approximately 186,000 miles per second. How is 186,000 written in scientific notation?

A. [tex]186 \times 10^3[/tex]
B. [tex]186 \times 10^4[/tex]
C. [tex]1.86 \times 10^5[/tex]
D. [tex]1.86 \times 10^6[/tex]

Answer :

To write [tex]$186{,}000$[/tex] in scientific notation, follow these steps:

1. Express [tex]$186{,}000$[/tex] as a product of a number between [tex]$1$[/tex] and [tex]$10$[/tex] and a power of [tex]$10$[/tex]. This involves placing the decimal point after the first nonzero digit. For [tex]$186{,}000$[/tex], the decimal point is placed after the [tex]$1$[/tex], giving [tex]$1.86$[/tex].

2. Count how many places you moved the decimal point. Since the decimal point moves from the end of the number (after [tex]$0$[/tex]) to after the first digit ([tex]$1$[/tex]), it moves [tex]$5$[/tex] places to the left.

Thus, the scientific notation is written as:
[tex]$$
1.86 \times 10^5.
$$[/tex]

This corresponds to option C.