# Math Help - Soup cans

1. ## Soup cans

"A soup can is a cylinder. The can has a volume of 342cm to the third and a diameter of 6cm. Express the height in terms of pi. Determine ther maxiumum number of soup cans can be stacked on their base between two shelves if the distance between the shelves is exactly 36cm. Explain your answer."
My teacher had gave me this problem and I though I knew how to do it. So far, whether it is right or not, I have the height being 143.4cm because the circumference of a circle is pi times diameter, which is in this case 6. I took pie times 6 and got 18. then I took 2582 and divided it by 18 and got 143.4 cm. I'm not sure but I'm thinking I got 2582 by multiplying 6 by 342 to the third... Could someone Please help me with this?

2. Originally Posted by intelimouse
"A soup can is a cylinder. The can has a volume of 342cm to the third and a diameter of 6cm. Express the height in terms of pi. Determine ther maxiumum number of soup cans can be stacked on their base between two shelves if the distance between the shelves is exactly 36cm. Explain your answer."
My teacher had gave me this problem and I though I knew how to do it. So far, whether it is right or not, I have the height being 143.4cm because the circumference of a circle is pi times diameter, which is in this case 6. I took pie times 6 and got 18. then I took 2582 and divided it by 18 and got 143.4 cm. I'm not sure but I'm thinking I got 2582 by multiplying 6 by 342 to the third... Could someone Please help me with this?
142.4 cm ? a can that's almost a meter and a half tall? does that make any sense.

note the formula for the volume of a cylinder ...

$V = \pi r^2 h$

so ...

$h = \frac{V}{\pi r^2}$

try again.

3. I'm still stuck, sorry. I took 342 to the third and divided it by pi 3 to the second and got 1414770.306. (heigh equals volume divided by pi radius squared)

4. Originally Posted by intelimouse
I'm still stuck, sorry. I took 342 to the third and divided it by pi 3 to the second and got 1414770.306. (heigh equals volume divided by pi radius squared)
the volume is not $342^3$ , it's $342 \, cm^3$

cubic centimeters are the units, that's all.

$h = \frac{342}{\pi \cdot 3^2}$

try again ...