Introduction:

Writing, reading and comapring the smaller numbers are very  

easy as compare to larger numbers.                                    

Ex: 15, 100, 1250, 20000 are small number.

But when we talk about larger number, it is very difficult to read,

understand and compare.

Ex: Distance between Sun and Saturn is 1,433,500,000,000 m and distance

between Saturn and Uranus is 1,439,000,000,000 m.  

These are very large numbers and also it is very difficult to read,  

write, understand and compare. To

make these numbers easy to read, understand and compare,

we use the concept of exponents.

The concept of exponent makes the represenation of

biggere number easier.

Ex: let a number 10,000

We can write 10,000 = 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 = 10⁴

Here the notation 10⁴ is the shot notation of 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 i.e. 10,000

So, 10⁴ is the exponential form of 10,000

Here 10 is called the base and 4 the exponent. The number 10⁴ is read as 10 raised to the power of 4 or

fourth power of 10.

 Again, 1,000 = 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 = 10³

So, 10³ is the exponent form of 1,000

We can use numbers like 10, 100, 100, etc to write a numbers in expanded form.

Ex: 12534 = 1 * 10000 + 2 * 1000 + 5 * 100 + 3 * 10 + 4 * 1

                   = 1 * 10⁴ + 2 * 10³ + 5 * 10² + 3 * 10 + 4  

The numbers which have base other than 10 can also be represented in exponent form.

64 = 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 = 2⁶

Here, 2 is the base and 6 is the exponent.

So, any number a^m is in the form of exponent where a is the base and m is the exponent and we read as

“a raised to power m”.