Question

The annual expenditure of the US federal government is approximately
\[4\] trillion dollars.
If a one dollar bill is
\[0.0001\] meters thick, how many meters tall would a stack of
\[4\] trillion one dollar bills be?
Write your answer in scientific notation.
For reference:
\[1\] trillion
\[=10^{12}\]
meters
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Answer 1

To determine how tall a stack of 4 trillion one dollar bills would be, we first need to calculate how thick the stack would be when we have 4 trillion bills.

Given:
- Thickness of one dollar bill = \(0.0001\) meters
- Number of bills = \(4\) trillion = \(4 \times 10^{12}\) bills

First, we can find the total thickness of the stack by multiplying the number of bills by the thickness of one bill:

\[
\text{Total thickness} = \text{Number of bills} \times \text{Thickness of one bill}
\]

Substituting the values:

\[
\text{Total thickness} = (4 \times 10^{12}) \times (0.0001)
\]

Next, we can express \(0.0001\) in scientific notation:

\[
0.0001 = 1 \times 10^{-4}
\]

Now substituting this into the equation:

\[
\text{Total thickness} = (4 \times 10^{12}) \times (1 \times 10^{-4})
\]

Using the properties of exponents:

\[
\text{Total thickness} = 4 \times 1 \times 10^{12} \times 10^{-4} = 4 \times 10^{12 - 4} = 4 \times 10^{8}
\]

Thus, the height of the stack of 4 trillion one dollar bills is:

\[
\boxed{4 \times 10^8} \text{ meters}
\]