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I came upon a $\,-\!\log(p\!-\!\text{value})$ or $\,5.86\text e00$. I know that eXX indicates $10^{XX}$, but how should I interpret e$00$ ? Is it then $5.86\cdot10^0=5.86\cdot1$ ?

Any help interpreting would be very helpful!

Peter Phipps
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Astronome
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  • Notation means whatever the author intends it to mean. If you have that aeXX should be interpreted as $a$ times $10^{XX}$ then you answered it yourself already... – JMoravitz Jan 30 '23 at 19:33
  • Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking. – Community Jan 30 '23 at 19:43
  • Hmm, there have been two edits, and I think they kind of erased the underlying question. Admittedly, the original version was unclear, but I think that would be better addressed by asking the OP questions and providing answers (like mine below!), than by editing out all the confusion. – JonathanZ Jan 30 '23 at 19:58
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    Long ago, computers were provided only with a limited character set to use. In particular, they did not have exponents. So this "E" notation was used for scientific notation ... 5.86e00 means $5.86 \times 10^{00}$. The notation allowed a two-digit exponent, so here it was written e00, even though it was not really needed. – GEdgar Jan 30 '23 at 20:48

1 Answers1

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I'm going to assume that this is a number in "scientific notation", and that you're using the European convention where a comma, ",", is the decimal separator. (Note: The post has been edited (though not by the OP) to use a period instead of a comma, so that second assumption is kind of moot, but I will leave this answer with a comma, as that's what the OP asked about.)

Maybe you're having trouble in that multiplication signs are usually left out, so we write "$a \times b$" as "$ab$", but that falls apart if we're dealing with actual numbers - you can't write "$2 \times 3$" as "$23$".

A number written in scientific notation as $a\text{E}b$ represents $a\times 10^b$. So your 5,86e00 is just $5,86 \times 10^0 = 5,86 \times 1 = 5,86$. The way you were writing it made it possible that you meant $5,861$, which would be wrong, because of that whole "suppress the implicit times sign" thing.

And to be super-clear, the final value is a number between five and six. As originally written, "$5,861$", it could be interpreted (in some locales) as a number slightly below six thousand.

JonathanZ
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  • Thank you, Jonathan! It is indeed very helpful. It exactly what I was wondering about. – Astronome Jan 31 '23 at 13:21
  • @Astronome - You're welcome. And if you think this answer should be the accepted one, you can up vote it with the little upwards pointing arrow head to the left of it, and click the little check mark there too. – JonathanZ Jan 31 '23 at 17:54