Question

A gremlin is a tiny mythical creature often blamed for mechanical failures. Suppose for a moment that a shrewd physicist catches one such gremlin and makes it work for her instead of against her. She determines that the gremlin can produce 24 milliwatts of power. How many gremlins are required to produce 24,000 megawatts of power?

Answer 1

a billion (1,000,000,000) gremlins

Step-by-step explanation:

since 1 milliwatt is 0.001 watt you'd need 1,000 gremlins to produce 24 watts

since 1 megawatt is 1000 watts you'd need 1,000*1,000 = 1,000,000 gremlins to produce 24 megawatts

to produce 24,000 megawatts you'd need to multiply that for another 1,000

so 1000*1000*1000 = 1,000,000,000