Q15P - Fundamentals Of Physics

Question

A fortnight is a charming English measure of time equal to 2.0 weeks (the word is a contraction of “fourteen nights”). That is a nice amount of time in pleasant company but perhaps a painful string of microseconds in unpleasant company. How many microseconds are in a fortnight?

Step-by-Step Solution

Answer

The number in microseconds in the fortnight is $1.21\times {10}^{12}\mu s$.

Step 1: Calculate the number of seconds in a week.

Consider there are 2 weeks in one fortnight and 7 days in one week. Use dimensional analysis to find 2.0 weeks in microseconds.

$2.0 weeks.\left(\frac{7 day}{1 week}\right).\left(\frac{24 h}{1 day}\right).\left(\frac{60 min}{1 h}\right).\left(\frac{60 s}{1 min}\right)=1209600 s$

Thus, there are 1209600 s in a week.

Step 2: Calculate the number of microseconds in the fortnight.

Convert the seconds into microseconds using dimensional analysis.

$\begin{array}{rcl}1209600 s& =& 1.21\times {10}^{6}s\times \left(\frac{1\mu s}{{10}^{-6}s}\right)\\ & =& 1.21\times {10}^{12}\mu s\end{array}$

Therefore, there $1.21\times {10}^{12}$ are microseconds in fortnight.