Question

In 2005​, the population of a certain country was about 255.4 million. To the nearest​ dollar, calculate how much each person in the country would have had to contribute in order to make one lucky person a trillionaire​ (that is, to give that person $ 1,000,000,000,000​)

Each person would have to contribute ​how much $?

Answer 1

$3915.43

Explanation:

In scientific notation the amount is computed by dividing 1 trillion into 255.4 million parts. Each part is ...

$10^12/(0.2554·10^9) = $3.91543·10^3 = $3915.43

Each person would have to contribute about $3,915.43.

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Comment on the division

I like to adjust the operands in the math expression so the result comes out in scientific notation. To that end, I have made the denominator be a fraction less than 1 (times 10 to a power), rather than the usual number between 1 and 10. This ensures that the quotient will be between 1 and 10 (times 10 to some power).