Question

I am having a hard time with this one not sure how to set up the problem.

A gas can holds 1.7gal of gasoline. What is this quantity in cubic centimeters?

I know that 1gal=3.785L
I know that 1L=1000cm^3

I have tried 1.7gal*3.785L/1gal=6.4345cm^3.

I just can not figure out what I am doing wrong.

Answer 1

The other two questions that I can not set up for conversions is

8.86*10^11m converted to gigameters

1.57*10^-10m converted to picometers

Answer 2

Your first one is great but you stopped too soon.
1.7 gal x (3.785L/gal) = 6.4345 L (Look at the units. gal cancels and you are left with L. Now you convert to cm^3 by
6.4345 L x (1000 cc/1L) = 6,434.5 cc.
There are two significant figures in the number of 1.7 gal; therefore, you should round the final answer to 2 places. That would be 6,400 cc.

There are 10^9 m in 1 Gm.
There are 10^12 pm in 1 m.

Answer 3

I am still lost on setting up the last 2.

Answer 4

So do I set this up as:

8.86*10^11m (1Gm/10^9m)=8.86*10^11/10^9 since my meters cancel? Which then gives me 8.86^20

Answer 5

Your set up is right. Your math is wrong.
That gives you 8.86 x 10^2 = 886 gigameters. (and you were smart to set up up that way to make the meters cancel and leave gm.) When you divide exponents you subtract; therefore 10^11/10^9 = 10^2.