Question

(a) Suppose the U.S. national debt is about $15 trillion. If payments were made at the rate of $2,500 per second, how many years would it take to pay off the debt, assuming no interest were charged? Note: Before doing these calculations, try to guess at the answers. You may be very surprised. yr (b) A dollar bill is about 15.5 cm long. How many dollar bills attached end to end would it take to reach the Moon? The Earth-Moon distance is 3.84 108 m. dollar bills

Answer 1

Ans.

a) To pay off the debt, it would take 190.26 years at a rate of $2,500/second

b) The quantity of dollar bills attached end to end that would take to reach the Moon is 2,478,116,129

Step-by-step explanation:

Hi, we are going to need to do some adjustments to the speed equation of physics (for a.) and a unit conversion for b.

Let´s see the equation that we need for a.

`PmtSpeed=(Debt)/(time)`

Therefore.

`time=(Debt)/(PmtSpeed) =(15,000,000,000,000Dollars)/(2,500(dollars)/(second) ) = 6,000,000,000Seconds`

Now, we need to convert this to years, that is:

`6,000,000,000Seconds *(1Year)/( 31,536,000Seconds ) =190.26Years`

Now, for b) we need to establish the leght of a dollar bill in meters, that is.

`Dollar(m)=15.50cm*(1m)/(100cm) =0.155m`

And now, since we know the length of a dollar bill in meters, let´s find out how many would it take to reach the moon.

`Bills(Units)= 384,108,000m*(1DollarBill)/(0.155m) = 2,478,116,129 Bills`

Best of luck.