What digit is in the hundreds place of the number before 299500?

Answer 1

The digit 4.

Why?

To answer this I have assumed that by "the number before 299500" the question is referring to the next highest integer (i.e. 299500 - 1) which is 299499.

If we were to write this number down in words we would get: two hundred and ninety nine thousand four hundred and ninety nine. As part of the number is "four hundred and ninety nine" we know that the "4" must be representing the hundreds.

If you are familiar with the concept of powers of numbers then please read the following.

Another way to think of it.

In any decimal number, such as this, each digit is actually representing the value of that digit multiplied by a power of 10. This power of 10 increases by one as you move each digit to the left in a number.

Working from right to left:

The first digit is representing the value of that digit multiplied by 10 to the power of 0. Therefore the 9 (on the far right) means 9 x 100 which equals 9 x 1 (any number to the power of 0 equals 1) which equals 9. So that digit "9" is actually representing the number 9.

The second digit from the right, again a 9, means 9 times 10 to the power of 1. 9 x 101 = 9 x 10 = 90. So this digit "9" is representing the number 90 (it is telling us how many tens there are; there are nine tens which is equal to 90).

The third digit, a 4, means 4 times 10 to the power of 2. 4 x 102 = 4 x 100 = 400. So this digit "4" is representing the number 400 (it is telling us how many hundreds there are; there are four hundreds which is equal to 400).

This continues until we have looked at all the digits in the number.

But it is this third digit from the right, the "4", that is in the "hundreds place".

Finally, let's look at an easier number. For example the number 135. This means 5 x 100 plus 3 x 101 plus 1 x 102. So it means 5 + 30 + 100, which is of course one hundred and thirty five! So it is the "1" in this number that represents how many hundreds there are.

A more concise answer is that the digit 4 is in the hundreds place in the number 299,499, the number before 299,500.