Question

Figure 4.3 on page 99 in your text describes relationship between the surface area (S.A.) of a mass of material and the size of the particles. It states that the S.A. is 384 and 1536 cm² for each of the two situations. What would the surface area of the 8cm cube if it were cut into 0.05 cm cubes? Show your calculations.

Answer 1

surface area (SA) is a property of solids defined as the total surface area of a material per unit of mass

Particle size is a notion introduced for comparing dimensions of solid particles, liquid particles, or gaseous particles.

surface area of 8 cm cube cut into 0.05 cm cubes

Considering each side of the square as “a”, then the area of each square will be a². Therefore, the surface area of the cube will be 6a².

The volume of the big cube:
V = a³
V = 8³
V = 512 cm3

When it is cut into 0.05 cm cube, the volume of each of the cubes = 0.000125 cm3 .

Hence, there will be 4096000 such cubes.

The surface area of the smaller cubes = 6 (0.05²) = 0.015 cm².