# i'm hopeless at percentages

• Aug 18th 2008, 09:58 PM
hollies_yardbirds_kinks
i'm hopeless at percentages
i haven't done maths for years, and now i'm face with it again at uni.

1) The shorelines of the earth (including lakes and the arctic and antarctic regions) total about 440 000km in length over ten times the earth's perimeter. If everyone of the world population (3.8 x 10*9 in 1974) decided to possess a portion of this shoreline, how much would he have on the average?
• Aug 18th 2008, 10:50 PM
Niall101
let A =(440,000/3.8 X 10^9) is how much in km each person would get.

If you want to show this as a percentage take (A/440,000) X 100.

I presume you meant ^9 and not *9
• Aug 19th 2008, 12:35 AM
hollies_yardbirds_kinks
oh yes! that's what I meant, and thank you!
• Aug 19th 2008, 03:07 PM
masters
Quote:

Originally Posted by hollies_yardbirds_kinks
oh yes! that's what I meant, and thank you!

It would seem that each person would get:

$A=\frac{440000}{3.8\times 10^9} \approx .0001158$ km. of shoreline.

This is approximately $\frac{.0001158}{440000} \times 100 = .00000263$ % of shoreline available for each person.

Check that arithmetic, though. That's a ridiculously small percentage.

One kilometer = 3, 280.8399 feet.

Each person would get about $.0001157 \times 3280.8399 \approx .3796$ feet or $.3796 \times 12 \approx 2.8$ inches of shoreline for their very own.

Break out the suntan oil.