photoconductor film is manufactured at a nominal thickness of 25 mils. The product engineer wishes to increase the mean speed of the film, and believes that this can be achieved by reducing the thickness of the film to 20 mils. Eight samples of each film thickness are manufactured in a pilot production process, and the film speed (in microjoules per square inch) is measured. For the 25-mil film, the sample data result is and while for the 20-mil film, the data yield and Note that an increase in film speed would lower the value of the observation in microjoules per square inch. (a) Do the data support the claim that reducing the film thickness increases the mean speed of the film

the largest number of the four options is 1.8 x 10-2

you have it in scientific notation.

1.80 x 10-6   = 0.00000180

1.80 x 10-4   = 0.000180 (bigger, or "less small", than the former one)

so

1.8 x 10-2       = 0.0180. as you see. the "less small", or the biggest one of them all.

as you have negative exponent, it means you are dividing 1.8 by 100 (i.e. moving the dot towards left, two times).

if you had positive exponent for the scientific notation, power of tenths, you would be multiplying times 100 (moving the dot towards right) as below:

1.8 x (10)2 = 180

so. if you have negative exponent in scientific notation, move the dot toward left. if it is positive, toward right as many times the exponent tells you.