A laundry soap company decides it wants to shrink the size of its box to save on cost. The surface area of the original box is 112 cm2 . If it creates a new box using a scale factor of 34 , determine the surface area of the new box. Round to the nearest tenth if necessary

1 answer

To determine the surface area of the new box based on the scale factor, we use the formula for the surface area when the size of the object is scaled by a factor.

If the scale factor is \( k \), the surface area of the new box can be calculated using the following formula:

\[ \text{New Surface Area} = k^2 \times \text{Original Surface Area} \]

Given that the original surface area is 112 cm² and the scale factor is \( \frac{1}{34} \) (since it shrinks the size), we first calculate \( k^2 \):

\[ k = \frac{1}{34} \] \[ k^2 = \left( \frac{1}{34} \right)^2 = \frac{1}{1156} \]

Now we can find the new surface area:

\[ \text{New Surface Area} = \frac{1}{1156} \times 112 \]

Calculating this gives:

\[ \text{New Surface Area} = \frac{112}{1156} \approx 0.0967 \text{ cm}^2 \]

Rounding to the nearest tenth, the surface area of the new box is:

\[ \text{New Surface Area} \approx 0.1 \text{ cm}^2 \]

Thus, the surface area of the new box is approximately 0.1 cm².