51.9k views
5 votes
Light travels at a speed of 3.00 × 10^10 cm/sec. What is the speed of light in kilometers per hour (km/hr)?

A) 108,000 km/hr
B) 1,080,000 km/hr
C) 300,000 km/hr
D) 30,000 km/hr

User C Black
by
7.9k points

1 Answer

4 votes

Final answer:

The speed of light in cm/sec can be converted to km/hr by converting centimeters to kilometers and seconds to hours. After these conversions, the speed of light is 1,080,000 km/hr, which corresponds to option B.

Step-by-step explanation:

The speed of light in centimeters per second is given as 3.00 × 10^10 cm/sec. To convert this to kilometers per hour (km/hr), we need to convert centimeters to kilometers and seconds to hours. There are 100 centimeters in a meter and 1000 meters in a kilometre, so we multiply by 10^(-5) to convert centimeters to kilometers. There are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour, so we multiply by 3600 (60 × 60) to convert seconds to hours.

Now, performing the conversion: (3.00 × 10^10 cm/sec) × (10^(-5) km/cm) × (3600 sec/hr) = (3.00 × 10^5 km/sec) × (3600 sec/hr) = 1.08 × 10^9 km/hr, which simplifies to option B) 1,080,000 km/hr.

User Yurislav
by
7.7k points