Question

Matthias used a laser to measure the average thickness of a human hair. A sheet of paper is about 0.0013 meter thick. How do the two thicknesses compare?

Answer 1

The diameter of a human hair is approximately 60 micrometers, while a sheet of paper is about 1300 micrometers thick, making the paper considerably thicker than the hair.

Step-by-step explanation:

To compare the average thickness of a human hair to a sheet of paper, we can consider the hair diameter provided in the question and the stated paper thickness. A human hair has a diameter of about 6.0 × 10⁻⁵ meters, which can be written as 60 micrometers (since 1 micrometer is 1 × 10^-6 meters).

The sheet of paper has a thickness of 0.0013 meters, which is equal to 1300 micrometers.

Therefore, the thickness of the paper is substantially greater than the diameter of a human hair.

It's important in physics to choose appropriate units for measurement, and for very small dimensions, micrometers are often used.

Hence, when we express the diameter of hair in micrometers (60 μm), we can clearly see that a sheet of paper is about 21.7 times thicker than the diameter of the human hair.

Answer 2

A sheet of paper, 0.0013 m thick is as thick as 19 strands of hair

Step-by-step explanation:

The average thickness of human hair is about 0.07 mm

Therefore, where the paper is about 0.0013 m thick we have

0.0013 m = ‪1.3 mm

Therefore, 1 sheet of paper is as thick as
`(1.3)/(0.07)` or 18.57 strands of hair or a sheet of paper is as thick as approximately 19 strands of average human hair combined.