What does standard form mean in maths?
Standard form is where you simplify a number so that it is between 1 and 10. You then use 10^ (10 to the power of) to show how many times bigger than that it actually is. For example, 2 x 10^2 is 200. 10^2 is 10 times 10 which is 100. You then multiply this by 2 to get 200. To put a number into standard form you should picture where the decimal point is. In your example, 149 600 000km, the decimal point would come right at the end. You want to move the decimal point backwards until you get a number between 1 and 10. If you move it back 3 digits, for example, you get 149 600. If you move it back six digits, you get 149.6. If you move it back eight digits, you get 1.496, which is between 1 and 10. The number that 10 is raised to the power of is the number of places you have moved the decimal point. As you have moved the decimal point eight places, this number is 8. So the answer is 1.496 x 10^8 (when writing this by hand, as you may know, write a small 8 to the top-right of the 10, like
