Understanding Scientific Notation for Small Measurements

To convert the measurement 0.00171 centimeters into scientific notation, we follow these steps:

1. Identify how many places the decimal point needs to move to the right to create a number between 1 and 10. In this case, moving the decimal point 3 places to the right gives us 1.71.
2. Count the number of places the decimal was moved, which is -3 because we moved it to the right (the exponent is negative).
3. Write the number in scientific notation as 1.71 x 10^-3.

So, the scientific notation for 0.00171 centimeters is 1.71 x 10^-3 cm.