Question

50 POINTS! The population of Tucson, Arizona, in 2015 was about 536,000. The population of the United States was about 321 million in 2015. (a) Write each population in scientific notation. (b) About how many times larger was the population of the United States than the population of Tucson, Arizona? Show your work and solve in Scientific Notation, and please state your conclusion as a complete sentence.

Answer 1

see below

Explanation:

Scientific notation is of the form a* 10^b where a is a number between 1 and less than 10

536,000 Move the decimal 5 places to the left. That 5 becomes the exponent and is positive since we moved it to the left

536,000 = 5.36 * 10 ^5

321 million = 321,000,000 Move the decimal 8 places to the left. That 8 becomes the exponent and is positive since we moved it to the left

3.21 * 10 ^8

Part B

3.21 * 10^8

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

5.36* 10 ^5

Divide the numbers

3.21 / 5.36 =.59888

Subtract the exponents

10^(8-5) = 10 ^3

.59888*10^3

Change to scientific notation

Move the decimal one place to the right so subtract 1 from the exponent

5.9888*10^2

Rounding since we are asked about

6 * 10 ^2

The population is about 6 * 10^2 times greater for the US than for Tuscon Arizona