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From: golding@neon.Stanford.EDU (Andy Golding)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Followup: how to format -1.23e-4 ?
Message-ID: <1991Jun17.173625.24274@neon.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 17 Jun 91 17:36:25 GMT
References: <1991Jun17.163146.19921@midway.uchicago.edu>
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Ca , USA
Lines: 26



I wrote:

> I was wondering what is the preferred way of formatting
> numbers in exponential notation, e.g.,

	   -1.23e-4

The responses were very helpful.  Several people suggested:

	$-1.23 \times 10^{-4}$

This seems to be the most esthetically pleasing choice.
It is easily implemented by:

	\newcommand\expnum[2]{\mbox{$#1 \times 10^{#2}$}}
	\expnum{-1.23}{-4}

The only drawback is readability of the source file --
it's awkward having \expnum macros sprinkled in it --
but I can certainly live with that.

Many thanks to the people who responded.

Andy