Question

Canada has a population that is about 1/10 as large as the united states. If canadas population is about 32 million, about how many people live in the united states? Explain the number of zeros in your answer.

Answer 1

Call Canada's population
`c`, and call the U.S. population
`u`.

We see that
`c=(u)/(10)`. Substituting 32 million for c, we see that
`32,000,000=(u)/(10)`. Multiplying by ten, we see that
`320,000,000=u`. By using Algebra properly, we have ensured that the number of zeroes in our final answer is correct.