The neat coincidence that 210 is nearly equal to
103 provides the basis of a technique of estimating larger powers of 2 in decimal notation. Using 210
a+
b ≈ 2
b103
a(or 2a≈2a mod 1010floor(a/10) if "a" stands for the whole power) is fairly accurate for exponents up to about 100. For exponents up to 300, 3
a continues to be a good estimate of the number of digits. For example, 253 ≈ 8×1015. The actual value is closer to 9×1015. In the case of larger exponents, the relationship becomes increasingly inaccurate, with errors exceeding an order of magnitude for
a ≥ 97. For example: :\begin{align} \frac{2^{1000}}{10^{300}} &= \exp \left( \ln \left( \frac{2^{1000}}{10^{300}} \right) \right) \\ &= \exp \left( \ln \left( 2^{1000}\right) - \ln\left(10^{300}\right)\right)\\ &\approx \exp\left(693.147-690.776\right)\\ &\approx \exp\left(2.372\right)\\ &\approx 10.72 \end{align} In measuring
bytes, 1024 is often used in place of 1000 as the quotients of the units
byte,
kilobyte,
megabyte, etc. In 1999, the
IEC coined the term
kibibyte for multiples of 1024, with kilobyte being used for multiples of 1000. == Special use in computers ==