# Scientific notation vs 10^

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/scientific-notation-vs-10/98849>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Created:** [May 14, 2023, 9:31pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/scientific-notation-vs-10/98849 "2023-05-14T21:31:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![gdalle](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/gdalle/32/224680_2.png) [@gdalle](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/gdalle)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2023, 9:39pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/scientific-notation-vs-10/98849/2 "2023-05-14T21:39:13Z")

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The reason is because you are using an integer to compute the powers of 10 in the first example, and [integers in Julia overflow](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/discussion-about-integer-overflow/69627). See for yourself:

```julia
julia> 10^23
200376420520689664

julia> 10.0^23
1.0e23

```

The first computation yields a number that is larger than the largest 64-bit integer, so it is very wrong.  
The second computation uses a floating point number, so it is approximate but it can cover a wider range of values

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