Light travels at a speed of about 3.0 108 m/s.
(a) How many miles does a pulse of light travel in a time interval of 0.1 s, which is about the blink of an eye?
what is one tenth of 3E8m?
To find out how many miles a pulse of light travels in a time interval of 0.1 s, we need to first convert the speed of light from meters per second to miles per second.
1 mile is equal to 1609.34 meters. So, to convert from meters per second to miles per second, we can divide the speed of light (3.0 x 10^8 m/s) by the conversion factor of 1609.34 meters per mile:
Speed of light in miles per second = (Speed of light in meters per second) / (Conversion factor)
Speed of light in miles per second = (3.0 x 10^8 m/s) / (1609.34 m/mile)
Now we can calculate how many miles a pulse of light travels in a time interval of 0.1 s:
Distance traveled by light pulse in miles = (Speed of light in miles per second) x (Time in seconds)
Distance traveled by light pulse in miles = (Speed of light in miles per second) x (0.1 s)
Substituting the values calculated earlier:
Distance traveled by light pulse in miles = [(3.0 x 10^8 m/s) / (1609.34 m/mile)] x (0.1 s)
Simplifying the expression:
Distance traveled by light pulse in miles = 186,282.4 miles
Therefore, a pulse of light travels approximately 186,282.4 miles in a time interval of 0.1 seconds.