The mass of a killer whale is 950,000,000 milligrams. What is its mass, in kilograms, expressed in scientific notation?
1 Answer
Explanation:
We can use conversion factors to get this answer. Let's begin by putting our number into scientific notation in the original units.
A conversion factor is a fraction that is equal to
we can also re-write these in scientific notation
We can do the same for
Now we just choose the fractions that have the units in the right location to cancel the units we don't want, leaving behind the units we do want:
then, multiplying powers leads us to add the exponents
and and exponent in the demonimator is the same as the negative exponent in the numerator, i.e.
finally