The US has an area of 0.75 miles squared, and LA has an area of 3,705,000 miles squared.

LA's area is N× 10^ (n), where

N=____ and n=_____

What is the area of the US?

This is one of those problems where you want N to be any value from 0 to 9, and n to be any value (scientific notation).

That means you want all the "significant values" (non-zero's) for N. But since N has to be less than 10, we let N = 3.705

What times 3.705 gives back 3,705,000?
Well, we know 3.705x1000=3705, so
3.705x1,000,000=3,705,000. Now just simplify n to a power of 10.

N=3.705 , and n=6.

-Hope this helps

or maybe you just know without writing it out that

1 = 10^0
10 = 10^1
100 = 10^2 hundreds
1,000 = 10^3 thousands
10,000 = 10^4 = 100^2
100,000 = 10^5
1,000,000 = 10^6 millions
....
1,000,000,000 =10^9 billions
.....
1,000,000,000,000 = 10^12 trillions etc

Scientific notaion has the lead digit X.yy X a whole number from 1 to 9.

Examples:
3.45
1.02
9.99

what i looking for was the US part. I couldnt find the scientific notation of 0.75, such as the N and to what power....

i understood 3,705,000 and i had put N= 3.705 and n= 6

@Ms.Sue the area of the US is 0.75 miles squared.. i didnt understand that part.

That is obviously an error.

http://www.google.com/#q=area+of+the+us+in+square+miles&*

i got it!! Nvm.. its N=7.5

n=2

There isnt no error... i just remember the N has to have a number before the decimals.... thanks though @Ms.Sue

by the way, the actually area of the U.S. does not really matter in this problem since it was just asking to turn it into a scientific notation lol