Question

In a given year, about 1.52×1010
pieces of first-class mail are delivered in the U.S. If each piece of mail carries a stamp costing $0.55, what is the total cost in dollars to deliver all the pieces? Write the answer in scientific notation, expressed to the exact decimal place.(1 point
$

Answer 1

To find the total cost to deliver all the pieces of mail, you can multiply the number of pieces of mail by the cost of each stamp.

Given:
- Number of pieces of mail: \( 1.52 \times 10^{10} \)
- Cost of each stamp: \( 0.55 \)

Now, we can calculate the total cost:

\[
\text{Total Cost} = \text{Number of Pieces of Mail} \times \text{Cost per Stamp}
\]
\[
\text{Total Cost} = (1.52 \times 10^{10}) \times 0.55
\]

Calculating this step-by-step:

1. Multiply the coefficient:
\[
1.52 \times 0.55 = 0.836
\]
2. Since we're multiplying by \( 10^{10} \), we will keep the power of ten.
3. Thus, we can express the total cost in scientific notation as:
\[
0.836 \times 10^{10}
\]
4. To convert \( 0.836 \) into proper scientific notation, we adjust it to \( 8.36 \) and decrease the exponent by 1:
\[
0.836 \times 10^{10} = 8.36 \times 10^{9}
\]

Therefore, the total cost in dollars to deliver all the pieces of first-class mail, expressed in scientific notation, is:

\[
\boxed{8.36 \times 10^{9}}
\]