Question

let's suppose I have a glacier moving at a rate of 64m per day. What would be the steps to converting it to Kilometers per Hour? Also, expressing the km/h using two significant figures

Answer 1

Answer:
`2.7*10^(-2) km/h`

Step-by-step explanation:

First you need to know the units that your quantity has. Velocity is given in length divided by time. So to transform from m/day to km/h we need to convert separately length from m to km and time from day to h. For length we have:

1km -------- 1000m

x ------------ 64m

x = 64/1000 = 64*
`10^(-3)` km

Next we convert the time:

1 day = 24h

And now we just make the proper substitution:

`64(m)/(day) = (64m)/(1 day) = (64*10^(-3) km)/(24 h) = (64*10^(-3))/(24) (km)/(h) = 2.7*10^(-2) km/h`

Note that our result has two significant figures (2.7) since 10 to -2 does not count as significant figures.