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Maths question for you


Thedelldays
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may be wrong, probably is, I failed A level maths

 

I reckon 10 to the power of 8 is 100,000,000

 

x 3 = 300,000,000

 

778 / 300 is 2.6

 

so 2mins 36 secs

you have got....300m meters per second...

778m KM.....dividing distance by speed on this one is a bit off and they are not at the same level if you get me..?

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we were doing this at work to pass some time lol...

this one stumped me as I cocked up and got the term "light year" wrong...

 

 

A star is 500 light years away from earth

of the speed of light is 3x105 km/s. what is the distance from the star to Earth

answer to be given in KM and in standard form

Edited by Thedelldays
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we were doing this at work to pass some time lol...

this one stumped me as I cocked up and got the term "light year" wrong...

 

 

A star is 500 light years away from earth

of the speed of light is 3x105 km/s. what is the distance from the star to Earth

answer to be given in KM and in standard form

 

I reckon 4.73 x 10 ^15 km to 3 sig figs. I took a year as 365 1/4 days which is not dead accurate but I think close enough for the sig figs in answer.

 

May have to pace it out to be sure though!

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Ah, but would it be a tape, or would you use a rule? Might get a bit of a catenary bend there with a flexible tape, even with near-zero gravity.

 

At that distance there may be a hint of catenary in a rule.

 

Definitely let the junior do the travelling, although at 45p per mile, the expenses might kill the job, I think I'll let someone else work out the logistics.

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as someone asked...reason why we were doing maths at work is one of the lads is about to go on an Engineering degree type course (3 years between HMS Collingwood and Soton Uni) and he was doing some maths revision/brush up and it got the old mind going....

 

 

It may reassure him to hear the old saying. ......

 

There are 3 kinds of people in this world - those who can count and those who can't.

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Funny how coincidences happen - talking about the speed of light and stuff (coincidentally ;))

 

I was on a train coming out of waterloo last night and another train left at exactly the same time (that's a coincidence in itself on SWT). We traveled at exactly the same speed (slow - not the speed of light!!) as far as Vauxall. During that time you had the uncanny feeling that you weren't actually moving.

 

having done physics at university many eons ago I immediately started thinking in terms of frames of reference (as you do) and the special theory of relativity which was developed by Einstein (probably on a train coming out of waterloo that left at exactly the same time as another train!) in which one of his postulates was the constant speed of light.

 

So when I got in the office this morning I spent sometime refreshing the grey matter on these important and fundamental concepts to mankind :lol:

 

Then I log into saintsweb and I find the rest of the known universe discussing the speed of light - weird or what :uhoh:

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