CHAPTER
INDICES
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1.1 INTRODUCTION TO INDICES
1.2 LAWS OF INDICES
1.3 ZERO AND NEGATIVE INDICES
1.4 FRACTIONAL INDICES
1.5 THE STANDARD FORM
1.6 SOLVING PROBLEMS INVOLVING INDICES
According to Singapore Department of Statistics, in 2004, Singapore had a total resident population of approximately 3 500 000 people, and the domestic electricity consumption per resident is about 1900 kilowatt-hour (kwh). Using the given figures, can you find the total electricity consumption of all the residents in 2004? If the average electricity rate was about $0.16 per kWh, how much did all the residents spend on electricity consumption in 2004?
We often need to deal with very large numbers like those encountered in the situation above, as well as very small numbers. An important mathematical tool to express such numbers is called indices. In this chapter we will learn the concept and notation of indices and use them to represent very large and very small numbers.
By the end of the chapter, you should be able to
• understand and use the concept of indices and the laws of indices;
• manipulate indices including zero, negative and fractional indices;
• rewrite and express numbers in standard form;
• express very large or small numbers using words like billion and trillion, and prefixes to units of measurements like mega-, giga-, tera-, micro-, nano-, and pico-;
• solve problems involving indices.
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