Question

A football is about 2.8 x 10² millimeters long. A football field is about 1 × 105

millimeters long. How many footballs placed end to end would you need to span
the field? Use scientific notation to calculate the number of footballs.

Answer 1

• 357 footballs

-----------------------

To find out the number of footballs, we need to divide the length of the field by the length of one football:

• (1 × 10⁵) ÷ (2.8 × 10²)

To divide these numbers in scientific notation, we need to divide the coefficients:

• 1 ÷ 2.8 ≈ 0.357

and subtract the exponents:

• 10⁵ ÷ 10² = 10⁵⁻² = 10³

We get:

• 0.357 × 10³ = 357

So, you would need approximately 357 footballs.