Find Digit in Column
Introduction
When you are dealing with multi-digit numbers, it can sometimes be hard to find a particular column (e.g. which number is the ten-thousands column in 456,349,826?). However, being able to find the column is important when it comes to adding and subtracting large numbers since you need to make sure you're subtracting equivalent columns. To find the digit you'll need the help of a number table.
Terms
Lesson
To find a digit in a column, you will first need to make a number table. These are tables that have columns corresponding to different sets of units. You can make them as big or as small as you need. For example:
| Hundred-Thousands | Ten-Thousands | Thousands | Hundreds | Tens | Ones |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
If you get a number like 769,915, you can plug it into a number table. A key point to remember is to fill the number in from the right (i.e. do the ones column first, then the tens column). You should always have a value for the ones column. Let's plug 769,915 into the table below:
| Hundred-Thousands | Ten-Thousands | Thousands | Hundreds | Tens | Ones |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | 6 | 9 | 9 | 1 | 5 |
This makes it easy for us to find a particular digit. For example, if we want to know which digit is in the hundreds column, we can just look at the table. In 769,915, the hundreds digit is 9.
You can make the table as big as you need. If you are working with decimals, you can put columns to the right of the ones column (just remember to add the decimal point as a column).