What is 1010?

Here’s a seemingly easy question: What is 1010? OK, it isn’t multiplication, but it is something similar. The answer of 1010 is: 10,000,000,000. Shocking, right? This is called “Powers of Ten”, which means 10 multiplied by itself countless times, according to this small number that is written on the upper right corner of the “base”, which is the 10 written in normal format. Of course, you could change the base to any other number you want, for example, 1. You could also change the number in the upper right corner, which is called an “exponent”, to, for example, 2. That will be 12, or 1x1, which is still 1. You can’t swap the base with exponent and vice versa, because 21, or 2, isn’t the same as 1.

And since today’s Oct 10th, or 10/10, today is also Powers of Ten Day. It's creator, Eames Demetrios, decided the date 10/10 was like 1010, so it’s today.

I’m grateful for this exponents system, or else, writing 1030 in equations would almost be impossible!