document.write( "Question 94859: How do I solve this word problem?
\n" ); document.write( "National Debt: In December of 2005, the U.S. national dept was approximately 8.1 x 10 with exponent of 12 dollars. At that time, the population of the U.S. was 2.98 x 10 with exponent of 8 people. In December of 2005, what was the U.S. debt per person? \n" ); document.write( "

Algebra.Com's Answer #69625 by bucky(2189) $\"\"$ $\"About$

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Given:
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\n" ); document.write( "In December of 2005 the US debt was $\"8.1+%2A+10%5E12\"$ dollars.
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\n" ); document.write( "Also in December of 2005 the US population was $\"2.98+%2A+10%5E8\"$ people.
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\n" ); document.write( "You are to find the dollars per person ($/person) so you need to put the dollars in the
\n" ); document.write( "numerator and the number of persons in the denominator to solve this. This becomes:
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\n" ); document.write( " $\"%288.1+%2A+10%5E12%29%2F%282.98%2A10%5E8%29\"$
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\n" ); document.write( "You can split this into two parts ... the numbers part and the exponents part. When you do
\n" ); document.write( "that the problem becomes:
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\n" ); document.write( " $\"%28%288.1%29%2F%282.98%29%29%2A%28%2810%5E12%29%2F%2810%5E8%29%29\"$
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\n" ); document.write( "Now work the two parts. First divide the 8.1 by the 2.98 (calculator time) to get
\n" ); document.write( "2.7181200805 which we round off to 2.72. Next divide the $\"10%5E12\"$ by $\"10%5E8\"$ .
\n" ); document.write( "Since both numbers involve the base 10, all we need to do to divide is to subtract the
\n" ); document.write( "exponent in the denominator from the exponent in the numerator and apply that answer to
\n" ); document.write( "the base 10. In other words, this division results in $\"10%5E%2812-8%29+=+10%5E4\"$
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\n" ); document.write( "Put these two answers together and we get that the dollars of debt per person in December 2005
\n" ); document.write( "was:
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\n" ); document.write( " $\"2.72+%2A+10%5E4\"$ which equals approximately $27,200 per person
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\n" ); document.write( "Hope this helps you to understand how to work the problem.
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