How Far Does Light Travel in 83.8 Hours?

[cwalker8184]

How many meters will light travel in 83.8 hours?

what I came up with is

(3x10 m/s) (83.8hr) = 2.5 14 x 10

answer
2.5 14x10 m

teacher marked it wrong very confused.

 

[PeterO]

How many meters will light travel in 83.8 hours?

what I came up with is

(3x10 m/s) (83.8hr) = 2.5 14 x 10

answer
2.5 14x10 m

teacher marked it wrong very confused.

I hope you really meant 3x10⁸ m/s for the speed of light.

Ponder this:

If you travel at 30 miles per hour for 10 minutes will you end up 300 miles away?

If you walk at 2 m/s for 8 hours will you be just 16m away.

Hopefully you see the problem in those two, and should thus get the problem with your answer.

 

[cwalker8184]

No, that was the exact question. I took a Physical Science test and I got it wrong.

1. How many meters will light travel in 83.8 hours?

I totally did not understand the question.

 

[PeterO]

No, that was the exact question. I took a Physical Science test and I got it wrong.

1. How many meters will light travel in 83.8 hours?

I totally did not understand the question.

well it travels 3x10⁸ metres in one second
so
60 times 3x10⁸ metres in one minute
so
60 times 60 times 3x10⁸ metres in one hour
so
83.8 times 60 times 60 times 3x10⁸ metres in 83.8 hours

Did you understand that driving at 30 miles an hour for 10 minutes won't get you 300 miles away?
Did you understand that walking at 2 m/s for 8 hours will get you more than 16 m away?

Do you know how far that driving would get you, and how far you would walk?

 

[asteriatic]

Your teacher may have marked it wrong because your answer is not in standard scientific notation. The correct answer in standard scientific notation would be 2.5x10^14 m. Additionally, the unit should be meters, not "m." So the final answer would be 2.5x10^14 meters.