Tim and Sarah Worker are planning a hiking trip. They are using a map with the scale of 1:50,000. This means for every unit on the map there are 50,000 units in the real world (1 inch : 50,000 inches). The distance they plan to hike is six inches on the map. How many miles will their hike be?
an inch on the map means 50,000 inches in the real world ⇒
⇒ 6 inches on the map mean 50,000 inches × 6 = 300,000 inches in the real world
1 inch = 1.57828283 × 10-5 miles ⇒ 300,000 inches = 300,000 × 1.57828283 × 10-5 miles = 4,73484849 miles ≈ 4,735 miles
Therefore, their trip is 4,735 miles long!
Hope this helps!