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Doesn't matter if it's more or less efficient. The OP specified in the OP that he wanted the answer in decimal form. If you answer it in any other form, then the answer is incorrect.
I could have made a pie-chart showing 1/4 of a trillionth of a second. And though the chart would have been accurate, the answer would have been incorrect.
Now that I think of it - you're all wrong, including the OP. The answer is:
I scored 730 on GRE numeric, and since I didn't know what "long scale" meant, until I looked it up, it obviously wasn't on the test. If it is now, I'm sure it would be part of the "reference sheets" with formulas, etc...
Long scale is used through out Europe including England. Where they also speak English. What a coincidence.
I have seen it in Nature at least half a dozen times over the last year or so.
No it isn't ..... they adopted short scale in the 70s and I can't think of a single english speaking nation that is currently using long scale on an official basis
also, on behalf of the english please do not confuse them with europe
For those that are against the rote learning methods and have otherwise "gifted" kids see if they can solve this problem. I will call it 8th grade and above, however I have seen 6th graders solve it..
I asked my 11 year old (5th grader) this question. He likes math and is in a gifted math class at a 7th grade level. His answer was correct. And, FTR, I am all for rote learning methods and believe that is one of the reasons all 3 of my kids qualified for "gifted" math (which is really "accelerated" math in our school). And my kids are not "calculator kids." I practically banned calculators from my kids in elementary school when they were learning the basics. I still limit calculator use and encourage methods/tricks for calculating in their head (I think it is good brain exercise) - but that is a whole other topic...
Quote:
Originally Posted by khuntrevor
Very good. You could possibly get marked down for not putting .00000000000025 SECONDS, but since I don't want the mommies to call and complain, I will give you credit and a rep point.
His teacher always marks down if he does not label his answer correctly or if it is in the wrong format (e.g. fraction instead of decimal). He must also show his work. This has sometimes been tough as he often forgets the label or to read instructions carefully, but he is getting better with this (and I have never called to complain!). Here is his thought process...
He thought out the problem and used a proportion to solve it. He also understands place value well.
4,000,000,000,000/1 = 1/s
4,000,000,000,000s = 1
s = 1/4,000,000,000,000
s = 0.00000000000025 SECONDS
He did use a calculator to convert fraction to decimal. He is pretty good with long division of decimals but he thought tracking the zeros would have taken him quite a while. I don't think he's worked at all with scientific notation in school yet. Maybe this is something we should work on this summer. He will start Algebra 1 next year as a 6th grader.
.25 trillionths - would slot into the hunded-trillionths
.000 000 000 000 25 seconds
not difficult - just a pain to track it out that far ..... not that hard with a calculator either
most calculators kids are using at that age will not list out the decimals for them to that extent and will show the answer in a different format - they would just need to convert
.25/1,000,000,000,000 = 2.5 x 10^-13 sec and then work from there
however, many scientific calculators would have zero problems with this and kids are moving more and more towards this
for example - this webbased one would give it to you pretty much as you are typing in the inputs
You can do it with the Windows calculator (straight decimal format). But, most do not know how to set up the problem--simply 1 over 4 Trillion. I think the problem does let a person demonstrate their command of decimal points. How many of the pharmacy techs at Wal-mart, etc. could do this? Kind of scary, when the difference between .001 and .01 could be fatal. Who was it that said take care of the small things, and the big things will take care of themselves?
Not really, they work in milligrams. 5 mg to 10 mg to 20 or 25 mg, are a lot different from each other. Depends on the medication, some doses are quite a bit larger in milligram count. The higher the dosage, the less a fractional mistake matters.
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