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36 votes
A butterfly house at a local zoo is cylindrical shape and contains 625 butterflies.

The butterfly house has a height of 10 feet & base diameter of 120 inches.
Assuming that the butterflies are equally distributed inside the butterfly house,
what is the density of the butterflies to the nearest 1000th?

User Ayudh
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1 Answer

21 votes
21 votes

Answer:

0.796 butterflies per cubic foot

Explanation:

Butterfly density, in this case, can be defined as the number of butterflies per cubic foot of space. We have the number of butterflies, so we need to know the volume of the butterfly house.

The volume of a cylinder is given by ...

V = πr²h . . . . . where r is the radius and h is the height

The radius of the butterfly house is (120 in)/2 = 60 in. Since we want volume in cubic feet, we need to convert this to feet. There are 12 inches in a foot, so 60 inches is ...

(60 in) × (1 ft)/(12 in) = 60/12 ft = 5 ft

Then the volume is ...

V = π(5 ft)²(10 ft) = 250π ft³ ≈ 785.398 ft³

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If there are 625 butterflies in the house, then their density is ...

(625 butterflies)/(785.398 ft³) ≈ 0.796 butterflies/ft³

User Bob Kerns
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