Answer:
3 lengths
Step-by-step explanation:
You want to know the number of 8-ft lengths of laminate to go around the perimeter of a 175 by 110 cm table.
Perimeter
The perimeter is the sum of the side lengths. Opposite sides are the same length, so the perimeter is ...
P = 2(175 cm +110 cm) = 2(285 cm) = 570 cm = 5.70 m
Laminate
The length in meters of one 8-ft length of laminate is ...
(8 ft)×(0.3048 m/ft) = 2.4384 m
Then the number of lengths of laminate required will be ...
(5.70 m)/(2.4384 m/length) ≈ 2.338 lengths
Since the laminate is only sold in whole lengths, 3 lengths of laminate are required.
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Additional comment
There are 100 cm in 1 m. One foot is 0.3048 m, or 30.48 cm (exactly).
We could have done all of this in inches (or feet) instead of meters. The conversion from cm to inches (or feet) does not give nice terminating decimal values, so we elected to use meters instead.
For the purpose here, we only need to know the result is 2+(a fraction). The fraction will round up to the next whole number, regardless of its actual value. (In the attached calculator display, the "int" function is a "floor" function that gives the next lower integer. We need the ceiling function, so used the equivalent: ceil(x) = -floor(-x).)
