What is "Standard Form"?

Standard form (sometimes called standard index form), is a way of writing out numbers.
It is especially useful when it comes to VERY large or VERY small numbers, which normally would take lots of time (and paper!) to write out.
Standard form is always written in the form:
a x 10n
Where…
n can be any integer, and tells us how far the decimal point moves.
a is a number between 1 and 10.
n is positive for BIG numbers and negative for SMALL numbers.
Example:
 Express 197,000,000 in standard form.Move the decimal point until 197,000,000 becomes 1.97 (a)Count how many places the decimal point has moved, in this case 8 (n)197,000,000 is a big number, so n must be positive.= 1.97 x 108