Question

1. The table below shows an approximation of the national debt of the beginning of each decade over the last century.Choose a unit that would make a discussion about the growth of the national debt easier. Name your unit, andexplain your choice.

Answer 1

1. Since the largest figure in the table is to the exponential of 12 (That is 10^12), it can be expreesed in the trillion unit.

Note that 1 trillion = 10^12

To express each of the figures in the table in trillion dollars, each of them will be divided by 10^12

Therefore the easiest unit to express the growth of the national debt is trillion dollars

2. With the new unit (Trillion dollars), the debts for the following years will now be expressed as:

Year 1900 = 0.0021 trillion dollars

Year 1930 = 0.016 trillion dollars

Year 1960 = 0.29 trillion dollars

Year 2000 = 5.7 trillion dollars