Question

The speed of sound is about 3.4 × 102 meters per second. Mark is performing a science experiment and he needs to know how far sound travels in 3 × 1010 seconds. If Mark uses a calculator to solve this problem, how will the calculator show the answer? it needs to have an E in the answer

Answer 1

Speed of the sound =  meters per second

Time to calculate the distance traveled =  3*10' 10 seconds

Since,

1.0*10 ' 13

Distance = Speed x Time

Using the values we get:

distance =3.4*10'2*3+10´30

3.4*3*10' (2+10)

10.2*10' 12

Since the calculators show the final answer is scientific notation, the above answer in scientific notation would be:

Distance = 1.02*10°13