POWERS OF NUMBERSusing the “standard” form

1^ 1 = 10*

1^ 2 = 100

1^ 3 = 100

1^ 4 = 1000 and so on

confusion arises when we use the phrase “ten raised to the first power” the word “raised” implies it is going to be bigger yet when applied to the “formal” way of powering numbers 10 raised to the first power doesn’t increase the number 10 but keeps it at 10 “this year your ten-pound wage will be raised to ten pounds!” to power a number to the first power using the “standard form” means increasing the number after the number 1 ten times this way of powering a number is called “standard” form 1^1 can be spoken as”one raised to the first power”or as”one raised to the first”or as”one to the first” use whichever way of saying it, and writing it, is easiest for you this is an attempt to simplify the counting system this is how ridiculously complicated a simple thing like counting has become whether it catches or not depends on whether people like yourself use it or not

when the need to be more exact crops up, as with the population of the world, which is around nine thousand million, we say “the population of the world is 9^9 this year and next year it is predicted there will  be another hundred million new people in the world which will take the population up to 9.1^9 which is spoken as “nine thousand billion one hundred million” with this way of thinking about numbers, it becomes “next year the population will be about nine point one raised to the ninth power” like a lot of new ways of doing things, it takes fresh thinking to start with but once you get the hang of it it will become straightforward enough *it is understood that this way of powering numbers is not the formal way of powering numbers this was the way the writer learnt to use powers of numbers this way of powering numbers will enable you to familiarise yourself with ultra-large and ultra-small values and will put things into perspective for instance, there are “only” 1^22 stars in the universe, but did you know there are 1^31 viruses in the sea?