SEARCH HOME
Math CentralQuandaries & Queries

Question from Wonder, a student:

A lecture period (50 min) is close to 1 microcentury.
Find the percentage difference from the approximation?

Hi Wonder.

To solve this problem, you need to find out the number of minutes in a microcentury first.

"Micro" means millionth. So take the number of years in a century, multiply by the number of days in a year (a precise value is 365.2421875) and multiply by the number of hours in a day and the number of minutes in an hour. Then divide this by one million to find the number of minutes in a microcentury.

To find the percentage difference of the estimate (50 min) from the actual (calculated above), you subtract the estimate from the actual, then divide this by the actual.

Cheers,
Stephen La Rocque.

About Math Central
* Registered trade mark of Imperial Oil Limited. Used under license.
 

 


Math Central is supported by the University of Regina and the Imperial Oil Foundation.
Quandaries & Queries page Home page University of Regina Imperial Oil Foundation