Nicholas Bodley <nbodley at speakeasy dot net> wrote:

> On Tue, 06 Dec 2005 00:19:11 -0500, Anton Sherwood <bronto at pobox
> dot com> wrote:
>
>> Dad (who teaches physics) says students are increasingly writing
>> "1e4"
>> rather than "10<sup>4</sup>" ...
>
> (You must have meant "10e4", btw.)

Nope, he meant "1e4", pronounced "one times ten to the fourth" and equal
to 10,000.

"10e4" would be pronounced "ten times ten to the fourth" and would be
equal to "ten to the fifth," or 100,000.

--
Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California, USA
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/