please explain with step, I'm very confused

Question

A pharmacy technician measures the mass of a pill. The mass of one pill is 350

 mg. What is the mass in kilograms of 100 pills? Write your answer as a decimal.

kg

Answer 1

Hello, Cha'lie,

We know that 350mg/pill.

(100 pills)*(350mg/pill) = 35000 mg total mass in 100 pills

Since 1 g = 1,000 mg, we can write: (1 g/1000 mg) and use it as a conversion factor. Since we want kg, we can also convert g to kg:

(1 kg/1000 g)

(3.5x10⁴ mg)*(1 g/10³ mg)*(1 kg/10³ g) = (3.5x10⁴ kg)(10^-3)*(10^-3)

= 3.5x10^-2 kg for 100 pills

Bob