California, the most populous state, has approximately 40,000,000 people living in it. The population of the entire United States is about 3E8 people. About how many times greater is the population of the United States than the population of California? State operation used and write answer in proper scientific notation (can use e)

 7.5 E 0

This is the same as saying 7.5 * 10^0

Both of these values convert to the number 7.5; meaning that the population of the US is about 7.5 times greater than the population of CA.

Work Shown:

40,000,000 = 40 million

40,000,000 = 4.0 * 10^7

Note how we move the decimal 7 spots to the right to go from 4.0 to 40,000,000

so the 7 in 10^7 tells us how many spots to move the decimal point in the base number 4.0

The number 4.0*10^7 can be condensed to 4E7. The "E" represents "times 10 to the"

As another example, "3E8" means "3 times 10 to the 8th power" which becomes 3.0*10^8 = 300,000,000 = 300 million

We have these two facts

We'll divide the two populations to get

y/x = (3E8)/(4E7)

y/x = (3*10^8)/(4*10^7)

y/x = (3/4)*10^(8-7)

y/x = 0.75*10^1

y/x = 7.5

We can see that the population of the US is roughly 7.5 times greater compared to the population of CA.

Convert 7.5 to scientific notation, and we get

7.5 = 7.5*1 = 7.5 * 10^0 = 7.5 E 0

Keep in mind that these are population estimates, and populations change over time.