Confused about scale factor

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bellasbeans

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I am working on a problem and I have not been able to reach my teacher is there someone who could help me understand what this is asking me to do?

"According to science, the largest predatory fish we know of was the megalodon, the ancestor of today's white shark. Estimated to reach a top length from snout to tail of 60ft, it was significantly larger than the biggest verified caught specimen of a great white shark- 20.5 ft. If the largest white shark had a tooth hight (that is, from the tip to the base of the root), of 3 inches, what is the estimate of the size of a megalodon tooth?

Thank you so much!
 
bellasbeans said:
I am working on a problem and I have not been able to reach my teacher is there someone who could help me understand what this is asking me to do?

"According to science, the largest predatory fish we know of was the megalodon, the ancestor of today's white shark. Estimated to reach a top length from snout to tail of 60ft, it was significantly larger than the biggest verified caught specimen of a great white shark- 20.5 ft. If the largest white shark had a tooth hight (that is, from the tip to the base of the root), of 3 inches, what is the estimate of the size of a megalodon tooth?

Thank you so much!
Click to expand...
The problem said:

"length from snout to tail of 60 ft, it was significantly larger than the biggest verified caught specimen of a great white shark- 20.5 ft"

What is the scale factor involved here?

Please show us what you have tried and exactly where you are stuck.

Please follow the rules of posting in this forum, as enunciated at:

https://www.freemathhelp.com/forum/threads/read-before-posting.109846/#post-486520

Please share your work/thoughts about this assignment.
 
I have been trying to figure out the scale factor, I have the equation to find the scaled length... ¨Original length*X=Scaled length" Not sure if this has anything to do with it or if I should use it, if so I am not sure where the numbers fit into the equation
 
bellasbeans said:
I am working on a problem and I have not been able to reach my teacher is there someone who could help me understand what this is asking me to do?

"According to science, the largest predatory fish we know of was the megalodon, the ancestor of today's white shark. Estimated to reach a top length from snout to tail of 60ft, it was significantly larger than the biggest verified caught specimen of a great white shark- 20.5 ft. If the largest white shark had a tooth hight (that is, from the tip to the base of the root), of 3 inches, what is the estimate of the size of a megalodon tooth?
Click to expand...
Along the lines of SK's suggestion, the first thing I tend to do with a problem like this is to extract the information into some sort of list or table, so I can find it more easily. In doing so, I eliminate extraneous information (though at some point I will have to go through the original problem again to make sure I haven't lost some detail that might turn out to be important). Here is what I might write for this problem:

Megalodon: length = 60 ft., tooth height = ?​
Great white: length = 20.5 ft., tooth height = 3 in.​

Now it's easier to see what we know and what we need.

I do want to add that you are expected here to make an assumption that is really unjustified, that the two sharks had the same proportions despite their different sizes. That's why your answer is called only an estimate; in real life, it's not a good idea to automatically assume that everything is proportional; you'd want to check your assumptions against other data. But there's no way to find an answer without making some assumption (e.g. that all sharks of any size have the same size teeth ...).
 
I think if I am using the equation I had... would 3 in be the scale and 60 ft (meaning the meglodon's length) looking like 60*3= the Meglodon's tooth length?
 
You're referring to the equation ¨Original length*X=Scaled length", right?

The scale factor X is not 3 inches. That's the scaled length. (A scale factor should not have a unit attached to it; it's what you multiply one measurement by to get another.)

Look again at my table:

Megalodon: length = 60 ft., tooth height = ?​
Great white: length = 20.5 ft., tooth height = 3 in.​

What number there is an original length? What number is a scaled length? Then how can you find the scale factor?
 
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