firebird-sc
asked on
engineering notation
Hello,
How do I display a number in engineering notation? That is, scientific notation where the powers are constrained to multiples of three?
e.g. 23.456E15 instead of 2.3456E16
thanks,
firebird-sc
How do I display a number in engineering notation? That is, scientific notation where the powers are constrained to multiples of three?
e.g. 23.456E15 instead of 2.3456E16
thanks,
firebird-sc
Which DBMS/language?
ASKER
Oops, sorry. Meant to file this under MS Access. VB is the language.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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as far as I am aware, there is no automatic method in VB to force the display in 'Engineering' notation (in fact, asa Physics major, and thus very familiar with 'Scientific Notation', I personally have never heard of the 'engineering notation' that you describe). Format(myNumber, "##0.0E+0") will only show 'scientific notation', and will NOT force the exponent to be a factor of 3. If this is an ABSOLUTE necessity, then you will need to write your own routine to get that type of exponential notation.
AW
AW
ASKER
Engineering notation is more practical than scientific notation. It's meant to fit with the system of prefixes of SI units. Consider 2.34E-2 Volts in scientific notation which becomes 23.4E-3 Volts in engineering notation, or 23.4 mV. The practicality becomes apparent when you consider that most measuring devices have ranges based on these prefixes. A multimeter will give measurements in V, mV, uV, but not Vx10^-2.
rsriprac's suggestion will work well for me; I am measuring carrier concentration in semiconductor materials and we write all measurements in the E15 range.
rsriprac's suggestion will work well for me; I am measuring carrier concentration in semiconductor materials and we write all measurements in the E15 range.