Not sure how to figure this math question out...?

[Paul P]

The text of the Encyclopedia Britannica is about 44 million words. For a sample of the about 2000 words, the average word length was 5.1 characters per word.


1.)Approximately how many characters are there in the encyclopedia? (be sure to allow for spaces and punctuation between words.)

2.)How long would it take to transmit the text over a T-1 line at 1.544Mbps?

3.) How long would it take to transmit the text over a fiber optic link at 2.488 Gbps?

4.) Could the text fit on a 600-MB CD?

[Eric C]

1) Convert words to characters; it sounds like you would just multiply 44,000,000 by 5.1.

2) Once you have (1), multiply it by eight (since there are eight bits in a byte), then divide it by 1,544,000 -- since 1.544Mbps is 1,544,000 bits per second. This will give you the number of seconds you need; convert it to minutes or whatever you want.

3) Same as in (2), only use 2,488,000,000 instead of 1,544,000.

4) CDs usually are either 650 or 700 MB -- but determine the number of characters from (1), then see if this is more or less than 600 million.