Small valued numbers or scientific computing

[John]

   It seems odd that I haven't stumbled into this before and I am sure I am doing something wrong, I just can't seem to find a better way around the issue of working with small numbers.

   Suppose I want to multiply two small numbers such as: 1.23456e-41 * 1e-20.  Unless I am happy with a result of 0, I have to use a really odd numberFormat statement such as:

  set the numberformat to "0.##########...############" where " …" represents sixty or so '#'

This seems really odd.  Surely there is a better way to do this.  Can someone help?

Thanks,
John