 These are names for the same thing and they are a very useful way for writing really big or really small numbers. So let's start by looking at how to write big numbers into standard form. Have a look at these numbers written in standard form. Can you see what's happening? You should notice something about the times 10 part and also this number. Pause the video, have a think and click play when you're ready. Did you notice that this number is always between 1 and 10? So it can't be 53.2 or 0.532 but it must be 5.32. Then looking at the times 10 number count how many decimal places you need to jump to get that first number between 1 and 10. So the decimal place moves left 3 places to give 5.32. So our number is times 10 to the 3 and 3 because it was 3 jumps. Here the decimal place moves 5 jumps hence times 10 to the 5 and 7 jumps means times 10 to the 7. So that's how we write big numbers into standard form. Now let's have a look at how to write small numbers. Again have a look at the table and see what you notice. Pause the video, have a think and click play when you're ready. Again this number is always between 1 and 10 but this time we move the decimal place to the right and so the number is times 10 to a negative power. So just remember that big numbers have a positive power and small numbers have a negative power. So the decimal place moves right 3 places to give 6.42 hence times 10 to the negative 3. Here the decimal place moves right 5 places hence times 10 to the negative 5. So that's writing numbers into standard form. Can you write standard form into numbers? Give these questions a go. Pause the video, work out the answers and click play when you're ready to check. Did you get them right? If you did and you want to skip the explanation click here otherwise keep watching. So write down 6.54 and then the times 10 to the 3 means we jump the decimal place 3 places to the right to give a big number. Write down 1.5 and jump the decimal place 6 places to the right to make a big number. So write 5.234 down and jump the decimal place 5 places to the left to make a small number. Small because it is negative 5. So there we have writing numbers into standard form. They're really useful for writing very big and very small numbers. Big numbers have a positive power and small numbers have a negative power and just remember that that first number needs to be between 1 and 10. We will look at calculating with numbers in standard form in another video.