EE Key on a Calculator

Date: 10/25/1999 at 16:02:31
From: David Galczynski
Subject: EE key on calculator

What does "EE" on the calculator stand for?

Date: 10/25/1999 at 17:30:17
From: Doctor Schwa
Subject: Re: EE key on calculator

It means "times ten to the" ...

For example,

     3.786 EE 12

means

     3.786 * 10^12
or

     3,786,000,000,000

What does it abbreviate? I don't know. One of the E's certainly means 
something about exponents, but I don't know why they use a double E.

- Doctor Schwa, The Math Forum
  http://mathforum.org/dr.math/   

Date: 7/19/2000 at 13:29:40
From: Doctor TWE
Subject: Re: EE key on calculator

My understanding is that the EE abbreviates "engineering exponent," so 
as to distinguish it from a "normal exponent" (i.e. the [y^x] key.) 

The "normal exponent" key (labeled either [y^x] or [x^y], depending on 
the manufacturer) raises the base directly to the exponent. For 
example:

     3 [y^x] 4 = 3^4 = 81

As Dr. Schwa pointed out, the EE key multiplies the first value by 10 
raised to the second value. For example:

     3 [EE] 4 = 3 * 10^4 = 30,000

Note that a similar notation is used in some computer programming 
languages, but it uses only one E (it may be capitalized or lower 
case, depending on the machine and language.) For example:

    3e4 = 3 * 10^4 = 30,000

I hope this clears it up.

- Doctor TWE, The Math Forum
  http://mathforum.org/dr.math/