Question

A hot air balloon was rising at a rate of 578 feet per minute (ft/min). Use the following facts to convert this speed to meters per second (m/s). 1 inch (in.) = 2.54 cm 1 m = 100 cm 1 foot (ft) = 12 in 1 min = 60 sec Round your answer to the nearest tenth.

Answer 1

First of all, we need to write the speed of hot air balloon:

$578\text{ }\frac{ft}{\min }$

To convert that to meters per second, we gonna make a multiplication like this:

$578\frac{ft}{\min}\cdot\frac{1\text{ min}}{60\text{ s}}\cdot\frac{12\text{ in}}{1\text{ ft}}\cdot\frac{2.54\text{ cm}}{1\text{ in}}\cdot\frac{1\text{ m}}{100\text{ cm}}$

Note that the way to wrote that expression is to cancel the unit in the numerator and the corresponding unit in the denominator, like this:

Finally, we solve this:

$\begin{gathered} 578\frac{ft}{\min}\cdot\frac{1\text{ min}}{60\text{ s}}\cdot\frac{12\text{ in}}{1\text{ ft}}\cdot\frac{2.54\text{ cm}}{1\text{ in}}\cdot\frac{1\text{ m}}{100\text{ cm}} \\ \frac{(578\cdot12\cdot2.54)}{(60\cdot100)}\frac{m}{s}=\frac{17617.44}{6000}\frac{m}{s}=2.93624\frac{m}{s} \end{gathered}$

and the answer is:

$\text{The sp}ed\text{ of hot air balloon is: }2.93624\frac{m}{s}$