A piece of copy paper has a thickness of approximately 4 × 10^-3 in, and a human hair has a thickness of approximately 1 × 10^-3 in. Which of the following is true?

Question

A.
A piece of copy paper is approximately forty times thicker than a human hair.

B.
A piece of copy paper is approximately four times thicker than a human hair.

C.
A human hair is approximately forty times thicker than a piece of copy paper.

Answer 1

To determine which statement is true, we can compare the thicknesses of the piece of copy paper and a human hair.

The thickness of the copy paper is approximately \( 4 \times 10^{-3} \) inches, and the thickness of a human hair is approximately \( 1 \times 10^{-3} \) inches.

Now, we can find how many times thicker the piece of copy paper is compared to a human hair:

\[ \text{Thickness ratio} = \frac{\text{Thickness of copy paper}}{\text{Thickness of human hair}} = \frac{4 \times 10^{-3}}{1 \times 10^{-3}} = \frac{4}{1} = 4 \]

This means that a piece of copy paper is approximately four times thicker than a human hair.

Based on this calculation, the correct statement is:

B. A piece of copy paper is approximately four times thicker than a human hair.