exponentiation (definition at eclectic content)

10 ^ 9
means 'ten to the ninth power'
which means, in turn,
10x10x10x10x10x10x10x10x10.

In computing, the following notation is generally used:
10^9.

You can try this in Google: '10^9=' (Go)

or on a scientific calulator using the 'x ^ y' button.

Note, however, that this is different from the exponentiation seen in scientific notation!

Exponentiation is used in scientific notation to abbreviate large numbers.

For example, instead of writing 123,000,000,000 , you could write 1.23 x 10¹¹ or 1.23 x (10^11)

The 'Exp' button seen in the image above indicates this type of abbreviation. This can be written as

1.23E+11 or 1.23e+11=

A simple way of speaking about this notation is to say "move the decimal over 11 places":

moving the decimal 11 places to the left

Or, if it's a whole number, you could just think of it as adding eleven zeros.

 10^1  	| 10^3		| 10^6		| 10^9
 10     | 1,000		| 1,000,000	| 1,000,000,000
 ten	| one thousand	| one million	| one billion
 Bytes	| KB		| MB		| GB
 Bytes	| ThB		| MiB		| BB
 in excel:
					=10^9
					1,000,000,000
					=10**9
					10,000,000,000
					(= 10 with 9 zeros? )
 in Google:
	10^9=     1 000 000 000
	10**9=
	10 ** 9 = 1 000 000 000