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?

Answer 1

1.02 E 13

Explanation:

The Answer is 1.02 E 13 because E means "time 10 to the power of". So 1.02 E 13 is basically just 1.02 time 10 to the power of 13.

Answer 2

`1.02 * 10^(13)`

Explanation:

Speed of the sound =
`3.4 * 10^(2)` meters per second

Time to calculate the distance traveled =
`3 * 10^(10)` seconds

Since,

Distance = Speed x Time

Using the values we get:

`Distance=3.4 * 10^(2) * 3 * 10^(10)\\\\ = 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)`