If you are going 55mph, what is your speed in nvm per second

Answer 1

I believe that the question is supposed to ask for speed in nanometers (nm) per second. If this is not true, I apologize, but my explanation should be useful either way.

This is a question which is meant to exercise your conversion muscles! I usually approach these by writing my start point and end point, and try to think about what needs to happen in between. The nice thing about these is that professors/teachers usually give you SOME conversion during tests which are meant to bridge between metric and US standard measurements. For example, if you are given that 1 in = 2.54 cm you can figure out this problem easily. You may be given ft to m or some other conversion, use whatever you have. For now, let's assume we have only inches to centimeters.

Steps to solve:

1) Write down the steps you must go through between your current units and desired units (eg. mi to nm)

2) Next, write down the conversions between each step

3) Convert and cancel units until you have the units you are seeking, calculating the steps as you go. This can be easier to do if you separate the numerator and denominator and work on them each individually until you are finished.

Answer:

Convert miles/hour to nanometer/second

For miles, we need to convert to nanometers. Here is what that will look like:

miles to feet to inches to centimeters to nanometers

1 mi = 5280 ft; 1 ft = 12 in; 1 in = 2.54 cm; 1 cm = 1x10⁷ nm

For hours, we need to convert to seconds. Here is what that will look like:

hours, minutes, seconds

1 hr = 60 min; 1 min = 60 sec

Now set them up such that the units cancel with each other. This is much easier to visualize when writing them down as fractions:

55 mi 5280 ft 290,400 ft

-------- x ---------- = ETC....

1 mi

Numerator: 55 mi * 5280 ft/mi * 12 in/ft * 2.54 cm/in * 1x10⁷ nm/cm = 88,513,920,000,000 nm

Denominator: 1 hr * 60 min/hr * 60 sec/min = 3600 sec

Once you have calculated the numerator and denominator separately, you can put them together:

88,513,920,000,000 nm / 3600 sec = 24,587,200,000 nm/s

55 mi/hr = 24,587,200,000 nm/s