How to convert big numbers into scientific notation

Your shell might have a printf builtin you can use to format numbers.

$ type printf
printf is a shell builtin
$ printf "%.3e\n" 646512354651316486246729519751795724672467596754627.06843
6.465e+50
$ printf "%.4e\n" 646512354651316486246729519751795724672467596754627.06843
6.4651e+50
$ _

If not, there's often a dedicated printf binary, too.

$ which printf
/usr/bin/printf
$ _

If you want to convert only specific column, awk helps

$ cat ip.txt
foo 64651235465131648624672951975 123
bar 3452356235235235 xyz
baz 234325236452352352345234532 ijkls

$ # change only second column
$ awk '{$2 = sprintf("%.3e", $2)} 1' ip.txt
foo 6.465e+28 123
bar 3.452e+15 xyz
baz 2.343e+26 ijkls