An average Escherichia coli cell has a volume of 0.75um3. What is this volume in cubic centimeters?

Question

um3 is um to the power of 3

Answer 1

1.0 × 10^-2 m = 1.0 cm

1.0 × 10^-6 m = 1.0 μm

 

The absolute exponential difference between 1 centimeter and 1 micrometer is 10⁴.

 

Now we simply cube 10⁴, but remember when squaring or cubing exponents they are multiplied as follows:

 

(10⁴)³ = 10^(4×3) = 10¹² 

 

In this case, our exponent will be negative because we know micrometers are smaller than centimeters. Thus, our number should become much smaller than 0.75 (the initial value).

 

The average E. coli cell volume = 0.75 × 10^-12 cm³