In a given year, about 1.52×10^10

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)
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1 answer

To find the total cost of delivering all the pieces of mail, we 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 per stamp = \( 0.55 \)

The total cost \( C \) can be calculated as follows:

\[ C = (1.52 \times 10^{10}) \times 0.55 \]

Now we can carry out the multiplication:

\[ C = 1.52 \times 0.55 \times 10^{10} \]

Calculating \( 1.52 \times 0.55 \):

\[ 1.52 \times 0.55 = 0.836 \]

Now, we combine this with \( 10^{10} \):

\[ C = 0.836 \times 10^{10} \]

To express \( 0.836 \) in scientific notation, we can rewrite it as:

\[ 0.836 = 8.36 \times 10^{-1} \]

Thus,

\[ C = (8.36 \times 10^{-1}) \times 10^{10} = 8.36 \times 10^{9} \]

Therefore, the total cost in scientific notation is:

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