Question

A protozoan swims with a speed of 3.54 mm/s. How much time (in s) would it take this protozoan to swim directly across a petri dish having a diameter of 8.07 cm?

a) 0.227 s
b) 2.27 s
c) 0.0227 s
d) 22.7 s

Answer 1

To find the time it takes a protozoan to swim across a petri dish, convert the dish's diameter to millimeters and divide by the protozoan's speed. The protozoan would take approximately 22.8 seconds to swim across the dish.

Step-by-step explanation:

To determine how much time it would take a protozoan to swim across a petri dish with a diameter of 8.07 cm at a speed of 3.54 mm/s, first, we need to convert the diameter to millimeters because the speed given is in millimeters per second.

1 cm = 10 mm, so 8.07 cm is equivalent to 80.7 mm.

The next step is to divide the distance the protozoan must swim (the diameter of the petri dish) by its swimming speed to find the time taken:

Time = Distance / Speed = 80.7 mm / 3.54 mm/s

Calculating this gives:

Time = 22.8 s (approximately)

Therefore, the answer is d) 22.7 s, which is the closest option provided after rounding the calculated time.