Tag: powers of 10

Powers of Ten

Picturing exponential growth, powers of 10, can be hard for any of us to imagine. The spreadsheet has the flexibility to enable us to explore the powers of 10 and to get a visual image of them. We can see the difference in shape between odd and even powers, and get a sense of the speed of exponential growth. We use powers of ten to gain a sense not only of big numbers but of how big spreadsheets can be.

Place Value: Thousands

We extend the place value generator to 100’s of thousands to show you how the pattern of 1’s, 10’s, 100’s, continues to 1,000’s, 10,000’s, 100,000’s. Enter numbers and watch the expanded and compact forms of place value change. Pay special attention to using text units and take a look at the rule we used to add those units to the number while letting the number change.