Q2 Consider the formula that relates distance, velocity, and time (d = vt). If you are interested in the time it takes for a snail traveling at a speed of 2 centimeters per second to crawl up a 1-meter section of a wall, which unit conversion makes the most sense to use?

1 answer

In this scenario, you're calculating the time it takes for a snail traveling at a speed of 2 centimeters per second to crawl up a 1-meter section of a wall. To make the calculations easier and ensure that the units are consistent, you should convert the length of the wall from meters to centimeters.

1 meter is equal to 100 centimeters. Therefore, you would convert the 1-meter section of the wall to 100 centimeters.

Now, you can use the formula \( d = vt \) (where \( d \) is distance, \( v \) is velocity, and \( t \) is time) using the same unit for both distance and velocity, which in this case is centimeters.

So, with the converted distance:

  • Distance \( d = 100 \) centimeters
  • Velocity \( v = 2 \) centimeters per second

Now you can solve for time \( t \) as follows: \[ t = \frac{d}{v} = \frac{100 \text{ cm}}{2 \text{ cm/s}} = 50 \text{ seconds} \]

Thus, converting meters to centimeters makes the most sense for this calculation.