Chapter 1 - Engineering Notation and Metric Prefixes

Engineering notation is similar to scientific notation except that it only uses powers of 10 that are multiples of 3. This is due to the use of Metric Prefixes for the most commonly used powers of 10 such as milli, micro, mega and so forth. Engineering Notation is typically used for expressing values of Voltage, Current, Resistance, Capacitance, Inductance and so on.

Note: This is not an exhaustive list. There are more prefixes in both the positive and negative direction. However, in Electonics - especially in DC - you're not likely to go below pico or femto on the low end. Or mega or giga on the high end. On the other hand - if you're working with Power Electronics on the AC side - then yeah - you can hit some high numbers.

Metric Prefixes