Question

Light from the sun reaches the earth in 8.3 min. The speed of light is 3.0 x 10^8 m/s. How far is the earth from the sun?

Answer 1

We can solve this problem by converting units and then canceling units so that we get distance:

$(\frac{3.0x10^{8}m}{s} )*(\frac{8.3min}{1} )*(\frac{60s}{1min} )=1,494x10^{8}m=1.49x10^{11}m$

So therefore we know that the earth is $1.49x10^{11}$ meters away from the sun.