1 · Physics Foundations

South Pasadena • Physics
Name
1 · Physics Foundations
Period
1.1
The following conversion factors may be helpful.
1 km = 0.621 mi
1. Simplify each expression
(a)
(6 ×10–4 mi)(5 ×10–8 mi)
(b)
(2.5 ×10–7 km)(2.5 ×1016 km)
(c)
6 × 108 kg
2 × 104 m3
(d)
6 × 10–8 kg
2 × 104 m3
(e)
6 × 108 kg
2 × 10–4 m3
(f)
6 × 10–8 kg
2 × 10–4 m3
(g)
(3 × 104 kg)(4 × 104 m)
(6 × 104 s)
(h)
(2.5 × 106 kg)(6 × 104 m)
(5 × 10–2 s)
Date
WORKSHEET
1 mi = 5280 feet
1 in = 2.54 cm
–
UNITS
1 kg = 2.205 pounds
1 yd = 3 feet
2. How many centimeters are in 25 meters? How many Megameter? How many millimeters?
How many micrometers?
3. How many seconds are in a 24 hour day?
4. The moon is, on average 2.39 × 105 miles away. How much is that in kilometers?
5. Suppose that you have a bag of identical marbles each of which has a mass of 20.0 g. How
many marbles will it take to match the mass of an exactly 1/2 kg banana?
6. Wally the dog was 19.5 inches at the shoulder and was exactly as tall as his dog door which
was a 1/2 a meter high. The neighbor’s dog Bear was 24 inches at the shoulder. If the neighbors
bought a dog door that was exactly as tall as Bear at the shoulder, how tall would the dog door be
in meters?
7. Tom weighed himself before his trip and found that in the USA he weighed 165 pounds.
When he got to Europe (he hadn’t lost or gained any weight) he weighed 75 kilograms. How
much did his little brother weigh in kilograms if he weighed 99 pounds in the USA?
8. While the class was playing around with the balance scale in the science classroom they
discovered 16 steel bolts balanced with 40 glass marbles. How many marbles would balance
with 10 bolts? What does this tell you about glass and steel?
9. There is an average of 32 million bacteria on each square inch of the human body. Given a
total skin area of 1.7 m2, how many bacteria are you carrying around? (Exclude the bacteria that
are internal)
10. A red blood cell lives for about four months and travels roughly 1.0 × 103 mi through the
body. How far is that in kilometers?
11. A diesel locomotive pulling 40 to 50 loaded freight cars at 70 mi/h used 1.0 gallons of fuel
every 632 yd. How many meters can it travel on 10 gallons of fuel?
12. A Boeing 747 jumbo jet carrying 385 people while cruising at an altitude of 39,000 ft travels
280 yd on a gallon of aviation fuel. How many gallons will it need to travel 2000 km?