Inline Rmd numeric formatting...?

inline.Rmd

---
title: "Test"
author: "Test"
date: "March 13, 2017"
output: pdf_document
---

```{r setup, include=FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = TRUE)
```

```{r}
val <- 260123.123
```

This is a value: `r val`

Knitting this (the raw version) in Rstudio gives me:

! Missing $ inserted.

$
l.136 This is a value: 2.6012312\times

pandoc: Error producing PDF
Error: pandoc document conversion failed with error 43
Execution halted