Scientific Exponents

[Scorpiоn]

Or whatever.  If you know math you know what I'm trying to say.

I filled out an application today for computer assembly (because I love it, they're like non-oily versions of cars) and it became apparent these guys weren't messing around.  There was a little test (nothing hard, just an anti-dunce test) after your basic information.  In the second part of the test, you had to arrange numbers from least to most.  It was something like this (I don't remeber the exact numbers):

• 157894 - 20
• 156938 - 20
• 168403 - 30
• 184732 - 20
• 179653 - 30
• 164932 - 20

At first I was going to just treat the "-" as a decimal place.  "157894.20"  But then I thought something else might be going on here; maybe it was a trick question.  I came back to it later.  It occurred to me they might've been the little scientific exponent thingies.  In that case, I put all the 20s first, and then the 30s.  I didn't actually solve it, because I had no idea how to figure out the true number.  Plus, I wasn't about to fill up an application with chicken scratch, which is what I have to do to do math problems.  I've always been better at English anyway.

So basically, was I right in my assumption?

PS: Even though I'm better at English than Math, since I talk to foreigners a lot, and since three languages conflict each other in my head, I still had some reservations about the "Is this word spelled right?" part.

PPS: With sentences like "End, I want to wish you to have the good luck in new year, everything is smooth, healthy body", you have to keep an open mind.

[Mobius]

Are you sure it wasn't just a "minus" sign?

Doubt it, I don't know what I would have done in that situation, probably the same thing you did.

[Scorpiоn]

Uh oh.

Perhaps it was.

[Mobius]

I don't know, I doubt they would have big numbers and just subtract off 20 or 30 everytime, then you could just put them in almost the same order.  I have seen many different ways of writing scientific notation throught out my engineering learning, and that could very well be another one.

[beaky]

How the heck can you order those if you don't know the context of the hyphen or minus sign?

[Scorpiоn]

Well, I think the point of the test was to make sure you weren't a bumbling buffoon.  They didn't really elaborate too much on anything.

[Scorpiоn]

I went back to the place today to hand in ID copies and stuff, and I asked the lady what exactly the numbers were.  Subtraction or scientific notation?  "Oh don't worry about that, we barely even look at that," was her response.  All that fretting in vain.