scientific notation symbol "e"

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Level 1

10 points

scientific notation symbol "e"

Why does Apple (numbers, iphone, a few other apple apps and (the not Apple) Canvas) use "e" as the symbol for scientific notation instead of "E." Do the apple engineers and programmers not know that Euler's number (base of the natural logarithm) e = 2.718281828459045... is already using that symbol.

I am a teacher and only recently are the kids allowed to use phones as academic, educational devices (research and calculators), but now they are confusing e and scientific notation E.

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2012), OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Sep 11, 2018 2:21 PM

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Answer 1

coxmic Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 11, 2018 2:50 PM in response to turingtest2

That is what someone who already understands thinks, not what someone who is just learning thinks. When kids see 4.57e13 their thoughts go back to (the only use of e that they have seen 4.57 x e^13 not 4.57 x 10^13 which is how it has been read an taught by all their previous math teachers. I teach physics and yes it is really unfortunate that these 3 classes of low achieving students have never encountered a use for math (just introducing metric prefixes) before now. Before today I had never seen e as scientific notation; granted I do not have an iPhone nor use a phone as a calculator. The iPhone's preloaded scientific calculator use e and also has the e^ button (that the kids asked about).

Correction: Apple Numbers (spreadsheet) does use E.

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

278,395 points

Sep 11, 2018 3:05 PM in response to coxmic

I see your point. You could use Feedback - iPhone - Apple to suggest to Apple that they switch to an uppercase E, but such change is hardly likely to come quickly should it come at all. I guess you're just going to have to teach your students about picking between alternative interpretations of ambiguous information.

tt2

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Answer 3

turingtest2

Level 10

278,395 points

Sep 11, 2018 2:38 PM in response to coxmic

i would imagine it is because the smaller character makes it easier to spot that a number has been given in exponent notation. Compare 3.5148e159 with 3.5148E159. If one is using e in a written formula it would not have multiplicands either side of it with no symbols or whitespace. 2e can be understood clearly, but what would 2e2 mean?

tt2

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