207k views
1 vote
The speed of light is 3.0 1010 cm/s. how many miles does light travel in 1 hour?

1 Answer

5 votes

Final answer:

The speed of light is approximately 186,400 miles per second. In 1 hour, light travels approximately 671,040,000 miles.

Step-by-step explanation:

To find how many miles light travels in 1 hour, we need to first convert the speed of light from cm/s to miles/s. There are 2.54 cm in an inch and 12 inches in a foot, so there are 2.54 x 12 = 30.48 cm in a foot. Then, there are 5280 feet in a mile, so there are 30.48 x 5280 = 160934.4 cm in a mile. Finally, we can divide the speed of light (3.0 x 10^10 cm/s) by the number of cm in a mile to get:

Speed of light in miles/s = (3.0 x 10^10 cm/s) / (160934.4 cm/mile) = 1.864 x 10^5 miles/s

Next, we can multiply the speed of light in miles/s by the number of seconds in an hour to find the distance light travels in 1 hour:

Distance traveled in 1 hour = (1.864 x 10^5 miles/s) x (3600 s/hour) = 6.7104 x 10^8 miles

User Pyrce
by
8.5k points

No related questions found