Manipulating powers of ten

The next question in the 2008 AQA GCSE paper is about manipulation of equations. It just shows you how important manipulation is for GCSE and for maths in general. I have written about this previously so there is a good chance that you know how to do this already. Today I will write about the variation involved with this specific question.

You know already that it doesn't matter which order you do things if numbers are multiplied together. As a quick reminder just think of 3 x 4 x 5. You get the same answer however you work it out. In this question the denominator has 2.8 x 10 to the power nine. In the denominator you have 4 x 10 to the power 5. If this is easy for you then that's fine. If it is complicated then tell me what 10 x 10 divided by 10 is. You can say it is 100 / 10 = 10 or you can say it is 10 x 1. It doesn't matter which order you do things in this simple case but it does matter when the question is more complicated. In this case it is very simple to have one multiple of 10.

10 to the power 9 divided by 10 to the power five equals 10 to the power 4. If you can't see this then write it out. 10 x 10... You get the idea. The final answer? It doesn't matter. What does matter is that you know how to deal with the question.

That sums it up.