A state budget was reported as about $77 billion. Written in standard form using digits, what is this amount?

1. The number 77 sits in the billions period. 2. Every period after the billions period (millions, thousands, ones) has no digits given, so each is filled with zeros. 3. To write the entire number, write zeros for all of the other periods, giving three full periods of zeros after 77. 4. That gives $77,000,000,000, which is 77 followed by nine zeros. 5. $77,000,000 has only two periods of zeros and $770,000,000 misplaces a digit, so both are too small, while $7,700,000,000 shifts the digits into the wrong period. _Source: OpenStax Prealgebra (CC BY 4.0), Ch 1 "Whole Numbers", section 1.1 Introduction to Whole Numbers_