Question

The average distance between nitrogen and oxygen atoms is 115 pm in a compound called nitric oxide. what is this distance in centimeters?

Answer 1

pm stands for picometer and picometers are units which can be used to measure really tiny distances. One picometer is equal to 10^{-12} meters. We know that one centimeter is equal to 10^{-2} m so there are 10^2 cm per meter. We can change the distance d = 115 pm to units of centimeters. d = (115 pm) x (10^{-12}m / pm) x (10^2 cm / m) d = 115 x 10^{-10} cm = 1.15 x 10^{-8} cm The distance in centimeters is 1.15 x 10^{-8} cm