Question

on average, a commercial airplane burns about 3.9×10³ milliliters of gasoline per second. there can be as many as 5.1×10³ airplanes in the air in the united states at any given time. about how many milliliters per minutes of gasoline are burned by commercial airplanes in the united states at any given time? enter your answer by filling in the box. 1.2×10 ml/min

Explanation:

Step1: Convert seconds to minutes

There are 60 seconds in a minute.

Step2: Calculate total gasoline burned per minute per airplane

If an airplane burns $3.9\times 10^{3}$ mL of gasoline per second, then per minute it burns $(3.9\times 10^{3})\times60 = 3.9\times10^{3}\times6\times10^{1}=23.4\times 10^{4}=2.34\times 10^{5}$ mL per minute.

Step3: Calculate total gasoline burned by all airplanes per minute

If there are $5.1\times 10^{3}$ airplanes, then the total amount of gasoline burned per minute is $(2.34\times 10^{5})\times(5.1\times 10^{3})$. Using the rule of exponents $a^{m}\times a^{n}=a^{m + n}$, we have $(2.34\times5.1)\times10^{5 + 3}$. $2.34\times5.1 = 11.934$, so the result is $11.934\times 10^{8}=1.1934\times 10^{9}\approx1.2\times 10^{9}$ mL/min.

Answer:

$1.2\times 10^{9}$