Standard form is a way of writing down very large or very small numbers easily. 103 = 1000, so 4 × 103 = 4000 . So 4000 can be written as 4 × 10³ . This idea can be used to write even larger numbers down easily in standard form. Small numbers can also be written in standard form. However, instead of the index being positive (in the above example, the index was 3), it will be negative. The rules when writing a number in standard form is that first you write down a number between 1 and 10, then you write × 10(to the power of a number). This video explains standard form: Example