I'm writing a software API for tracking measurements, and the API has an option for configuring the precision of the values displayed. The configuration is a number that serves as the exponent of a power-of-10 multiplier (i.e. scientific notation); e.g. if the measurement units are meters, if this number that configures the precision is -3, the multiplier is 0.001 and the displayed units are millimeters. Or if the configured precision is 3, the multiplier is 1000 and the displayed units are kilometers.
What simple, succinct, & specific mathematical word can I use as the name of this configuration value? I.e., what can I call 'n' in this: Measurement x 10n
The term "multiplier" isn't accurate since by itself that number isn't a multiplier, and "scaler" doesn't seem right either.
In scientific notation, such as $9.81 \times 10^4$, we call $9.81$ the mantissa and $4$ the exponent.