A druggist is preparing a medication. Each capsule requires 0.007 grams of aspirin. He has 14 grams of aspirin. How many capsules can he prepare? A. 5,000 B. 200 C. 2,000 D. 500
C. 2,000
This problem requires determining how many smaller, equal units can be created from a larger, total quantity. The key operation to solve this type of problem is division. We are given the total amount of aspirin available and the specific amount of aspirin required for each individual capsule.
The given information is:
Total amount of aspirin = 14 grams
Amount of aspirin per capsule = 0.007 grams
To find the number of capsules, we must divide the total amount of aspirin by the amount of aspirin needed for one capsule. The formula is:
Number of Capsules = (Total Amount of Aspirin) / (Amount of Aspirin per Capsule)
Substituting the given values into the formula:
Number of Capsules = 14 / 0.007
To simplify the division by a decimal, we can convert the divisor (0.007) into a whole number. This can be achieved by multiplying it by a power of 10. Since 0.007 has three decimal places, we multiply it by 1,000 to get 7. To keep the equation balanced, we must also multiply the dividend (14) by the same number (1,000).
14 × 1,000 = 14,000
0.007 × 1,000 = 7
The new, equivalent division problem is:
Number of Capsules = 14,000 / 7
This calculation is much simpler. We can look at the basic fact that 14 divided by 7 equals 2. Since we are dividing 14,000, we simply add the three zeros to our result.
14,000 / 7 = 2,000
Therefore, the druggist can prepare 2,000 capsules from 14 grams of aspirin. Each of the 2,000 capsules will contain the required 0.007 grams of the medication.thumb_upthumb_down
