What is the surface area to volume ratio of a cell that is 100 micrometers on one side? Is this ratio good for a cell or not? Why?

Question

Biology

Harrison Porter

13 May, 06:06

What is the surface area to volume ratio of a cell that is 100 micrometers on one side? Is this ratio good for a cell or not? Why?

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Answers (1)

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Crystal · Answer 1

1. For a cell that is 100 micrometers on one side,

Let assume that the cell is cuboidal in shape,

surface area of one side = 100 * 100 = 10000 micrometers

There are six sides to a cube,

Thus, total surface area = 6*1000 = 6000

Volume = 100 * 100 * 100 = 1,000,000

Surface to volume ratio = 6000/1000000

0.006.

Therefore, the surface area to volume ration for the cell is 0.006.

2. This surface area to volume ratio is not good for the cell. This is because, the surface area to volume ratio is too small.

In order for a cell to effectively obtain the nutrients that it needs through the diffusion process, the ratio of the surface area of the cell to its volume must be high, if not the cell will not be able to get adequate nutrients for its survival and this may lead to its death. Cells divides continuously majorly because they want to maintain high surface area to volume ratio of their cells. A cell that is too big will have low surface area to volume ratio.