Question

Given that a typical piece of printing paper is approximately 0.1 mm thick, calculate how many times thinner the stratum corneum is?

The outermost layer of your skin, the stratum corneum, consists of about 15 layers of dead cells. Together these cells measure approximately 0.0002 cm in thickness and yet, if intact, they are an excellent first line of defence against pathogens.

Answer 1

`50` times thinner

Explanation:

We need to convert `0.0002 \ "cm"` into `"mm"`.

Know that `1 \ "cm"=10 \ "mm"`, so here there will be

`0.0002*10=0.002 \ "mm"`

Putting it as a fraction, we have

`(0.002color(red)cancelcolor(black)"mm")/(0.1color(red)cancelcolor(black)"mm")=1/50`

So, the stratum corneum has a thickness of `1/50` of the paper, and is `50` times thinner.