Question

A hot air balloon was rising at a rate of 578 feet per minute (ft/min). Use the following facts to convert this speed to meters per second (m/s). 1 inch (in.) = 2.54 cm 1 m = 100 cm 1 foot (ft) = 12 in 1 min = 60 sec Round your answer to the nearest tenth.

Answer 1

First of all, we need to write the speed of hot air balloon:

`578\text{ }(ft)/(\min )`

To convert that to meters per second, we gonna make a multiplication like this:

`578(ft)/(\min)\cdot\frac{1\text{ min}}{60\text{ s}}\cdot\frac{12\text{ in}}{1\text{ ft}}\cdot\frac{2.54\text{ cm}}{1\text{ in}}\cdot\frac{1\text{ m}}{100\text{ cm}}`

Note that the way to wrote that expression is to cancel the unit in the numerator and the corresponding unit in the denominator, like this:

Finally, we solve this:

`\begin{gathered} 578(ft)/(\min)\cdot\frac{1\text{ min}}{60\text{ s}}\cdot\frac{12\text{ in}}{1\text{ ft}}\cdot\frac{2.54\text{ cm}}{1\text{ in}}\cdot\frac{1\text{ m}}{100\text{ cm}} \\ ((578\cdot12\cdot2.54))/((60\cdot100))(m)/(s)=(17617.44)/(6000)(m)/(s)=2.93624(m)/(s) \end{gathered}`

and the answer is:

`\text{The sp}ed\text{ of hot air balloon is: }2.93624(m)/(s)`