Practice Page
Directions: Choose the best answer for each question.

1.
A computer can perform a specific arithmetic operation in 5 × 10-7 seconds. How many such arithmetic operations can the computer perform in one hour?
computermath2

 

 

2.
The population of a city is estimated at 8 × 106, which is 16 times greater than the population of a small town. Using scientific notation, express the estimated population of the small town.

population

 

 

3.
Light travels at approximately 3.0 × 108 meters per second. How far does light travel in one week?

light

 

 

4.
A research division of IBM employs approximately 5 × 103 people. A software division of IBM employs approximately 50,000 people. How many times as much is the number of employees in the software division as the number of employees in the research division?

 

 

5.
Mercury's average distance from the sun is 57,910,000 km. The Earth is approximately 93,000,000 miles from the sun. What would be the distance of a trip from Mercury to Earth, when Mercury and Earth are on opposite sides of the Sun.
Use scientific notation and the conversion that 1 km = 0.62 mi to solve this problem.

mercury

 

 

6.
The approximate volume of the visible universe (a sphere with a radius of about 14 billion light years) is
1.1 × 1031 cubic light-years. If a light-year equals 9.2 × 1017 centimeters, how many cubic centimeters does the visible universe occupy?



universe(Information courtesy of NASA.)   

 

 

7.
The half-life of Uranium 234 is 2.5 × 105 years and the half-life of Plutonium is 8.0 × 107 years. How many times greater is the half-life of Plutonium than Uranium 234?

uranium

 

 

8.
The mass of particle A is approximately
5.4 × 10-12 kilograms and the mass of particle B is approximately 8.6 × 10-28 kilograms. Approximately how many particle Bs have the same mass as one particle A?

microscopeguy

 

 

9.
Light travels at a speed of 1.86 × 105 miles per second. If a "light year" is the distance that light travels in one year, how many miles are in a light year?

sunlight

 

 

10.
Assume that there are 20,000 runners in the New York City Marathon.  Each runner runs a distance of 26 miles.   If you add together the total number of miles for all runners, how many times around the globe would the marathon runners have gone?  
Consider the circumference of the earth to be 2.5 × 104 miles. 

marathon

 

 

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