Powers of Ten

Picturing exponential growth, powers of 10, can be hard for any of us to imagine. The spreadsheet has the flexibility to enable us to explore the powers of 10 and to get a visual image of them. We can see the difference in shape between odd and even powers, and get a sense of the speed of exponential growth. We use powers of ten to gain a sense not only of big numbers but of how big spreadsheets can be.