2014-01-13, 08:56 PM
Imagine Wrote:The problem states that gravity at sea level is 9.83.
Solving for r_sea gets me 6.37*10^6, which is the radius I plugged into the problem, but then I noticed that I rounded it. If I didn't round it and do all the math, it gets me 2,594.
When you're doing a precise calculation like this one, don't round anything until the final answer.
It takes some practice but you have to recognize what the problem is asking for and think about what would be acceptable for rounding.
For this scenario, you're trying to find a distance in the low thousands of feet, so decimals aren't going to matter 99% of the time.