Question

Roughly, it takes light less than 0.000000003 of a second to travel a one-meter distance. Express this number in the form of a × 10^n where 1 < a < 10 and is a one-digit number.(1 point)

Responses

3 × 10^−8
3 times 10 superscript negative 8 baseline

3 × 10^8
3 times 10 superscript 8 baseline

3 × 10^−9
3 times 10 superscript negative 9 baseline

3 × 10^9

Answer 1

[AI-generated answer — Bot GPT-4 Turbo]

The correct way to express the number in scientific notation is 3 × 10^−8, which means:

3 times 10 to the power of negative 8.

This notation implies that the decimal must be moved 8 places to the left of the digit 3; hence the number 0.00000003. This matches the stated fact that light takes less than this amount of time to travel a one-meter distance (specifically about 3.3 nanoseconds, where 1 nanosecond is equal to 1 × 10^−9 seconds).