Question

The pressure 15.0 meters under water is 248 kPa. What is this pressure in atm?

Answer 1

`"2.45 atm"`

Explanation:

The thing to remember about an atmosphere is that it represents the average pressure exerted by the atmosphere at sea level.

You know that pressure is defined as force per unit of surface. When you have a force of `"1 N"` pushing on a surface of `"1 m"^2`, you have a pressure of `1` pascal, or `"1 Pa"`.

When you have exactly `"1000 Pa"`, you have one kilopascal, or `"kPa"`.

In order to have a pressure of `1` atmosphere, or `"1 atm"`, you need to have exactly `"101.325 kPa"`. This means that the pressure given to you will be equivalent to

`248 color(red)(cancel(color(black)("kPa"))) * "1 atm"/(101.325color(red)(cancel(color(black)("kPa")))) = color(green)(bar(ul(|color(white)(a/a)color(black)("2.45 atm")color(white)(a/a)|)))`

The answer is rounded to three sig figs.