text: what is the standard form for 4x100000+3x0.1+2 x 0.01? my son is in 5th grade and this is a problem that i don't really understand. a function usually seen in multiplication or division but here goes... 4 x 100000 gives 400000 3 x 0.1 gives 0.3 2 x 0.01 gives 0.02   adding these gives us:  400000.32  as a decimal, to express in 'standard form' we move the decimal point (dp) along until we only have one number to the left...   that's what standard form is all about!  4.0000032  we now have to let teacher know how many places we moved the dp  as we moved it 5 places left we have to multiply 10 by 5 (this is the same as 100000)  giving us:  4.0000032 x 100000  this should be written as a 'power' which is:   4.0000032 x 10^5   but i cannot format the 5 above the 10 (also known as superscript) but if you know how to write 4 squared using the small 2 above the 4, then you have the idea.