Assuming that light travels at 186 thousand miles per second, and the is about 93million miles from the earth,how much time does light take to reach the earth from the sun?

Question

Math is hard for me so my friend told me to come here so y'all can help me with my work cause I'm kinda retarded at times so answers these questions for me please and thank you for helping me with my work

Answer 1

The question boils down to "how long does it take light, traveling at 186,000 miles/second to go 93 million miles? To answer this, we can use dimensional analysis which is where you just plug in values in order to cancel certain units and leave the desired units. Hopefully, you know about scientific notation. If not, post this again asking the tutor NOT to use scientific notation.

93 million miles = 9.3x10⁷ miles

186,000 miles/sec = 1.86x10⁵ miles/sec

Dimensional analysis:

9.3x10⁷ miles x 1 sec/1.86x10⁵ miles = 5x10² seconds = 500 seconds

So, it take about 500 seconds for light from sun to reach earth.

Converting to minutes:

500 seconds x 1 minute/60 seconds = 8.33 minutes for light to reach earth (this is = to 8 minutes 20 seconds)