Question

In a given year, about 1.52×1010
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)

Answer 1

To calculate the total cost of delivering all the pieces of first-class 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

We will perform the multiplication:

\[
\text{Total Cost} = (\text{Number of pieces of mail}) \times (\text{Cost per stamp})
\]

\[
\text{Total Cost} = (1.52 \times 10^{10}) \times 0.55
\]

Calculating \( 1.52 \times 0.55 \):

\[
1.52 \times 0.55 = 0.836
\]

Now we multiply this result by \( 10^{10} \):

\[
\text{Total Cost} = 0.836 \times 10^{10}
\]

In scientific notation, we want to express this with a single non-zero digit to the left of the decimal point. To do so, we can convert \( 0.836 \) into \( 8.36 \) by moving the decimal point one place to the right:

\[
0.836 \times 10^{10} = 8.36 \times 10^{9}
\]

Thus, the total cost in scientific notation is:

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