Question

A company manufactured 1.8 x 10^9 light bulbs last year. Each light bulb is checked for defects before packaging. If 2% were found to have defects, how many had defects, write your answer in scientific notation.

Answer 1

Total number of bulbs that were manufactured last year =
`1.8*10^(9)`

Percentage of defective bulbs = 2%

Number of defective bulbs = Percentage of defective bulbs x Total number of bulbs.

Using the values, we get:

Number of defective bulbs =
`0.02 * 1.8*10^(9)`

`\\ =2*1.8*10^(7) \\ \\ =3.6*10^(7)`

Thus,
`3.6*10^(7)` defective bulbs were manufactured last year