When moving the decimal to the right, what type of exponent is applied?

When moving the decimal to the right in scientific notation, a positive exponent is applied. This is because moving the decimal point to the right effectively multiplies the number by a power of ten that is greater than one. For instance, if you convert a number like 4.5 into scientific notation and need to express it as a larger number, moving the decimal to the right will increase the exponent of ten (e.g., 45 can be expressed as ( 4.5 \times 10^1 ), where you shifted the decimal one place to the right).

This positive exponent indicates that the quantity has increased, as you are expressing a larger value. In contrast, moving the decimal to the left would lead to a negative exponent since it represents a division by a power of ten, scaling the number down. Hence, the correct context for this question is that moving the decimal to the right is directly associated with applying a positive exponent.