Which number is greater, 23 × 10 3 or 11 × 10 4 ? How do you know? Show your work and?

physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/prefixes.html

You just have to memorize this stuff, at least the ones you work with all the time. It's ok to bookmark the page so you can look up the others when you run across them.

There is a prefix every three powers of ten, except for 100, 10, 1/10, and 1/100. To go from one to another you use the LARD rule: LEFT ADD RIGHT DEDUCT. When moving the decimal to the LEFT you ADD to the power of ten. When going to the RIGHT you DEDUCT from the power of ten.

11 x 10^4 = 110 x 10^3 and that is greater than 23 x 10^3