Engineering Notation Calculator

Engineering notation is scientific notation with a practical twist: the exponent is always a multiple of three. That single rule lines the powers of ten up with the metric prefixes engineers actually use, so 47,000 ohms becomes 47 times ten to the third, which you read as 47 kilohms. Scientific notation would write the same number as 4.7 times ten to the fourth, technically correct but awkward to say out loud on a job.

The conversion is simple. Find the power of ten that is a multiple of three and small enough to leave a number between 1 and 1000 in front. For 0.0000056 farads, the nearest multiple of three is minus six, giving 5.6 times ten to the minus six, or 5.6 microfarads. The mantissa always sits in that 1-to-1000 window, which is exactly the range a metric prefix covers before you step up to the next one.

This matters because electronics, mechanics, and most of engineering are built on these prefixes: kilo, mega, giga on the way up, milli, micro, nano, pico on the way down. Reading a value as 2.2 nanofarads is faster and less error-prone than parsing 0.0000000022. The notation keeps you in step with how components are labeled and how datasheets are written.

Enter any number, in plain or scientific form, and pick how many significant figures you want. You get the engineering-notation form, the matching metric prefix, the ordinary scientific notation for comparison, and the plain decimal value.