Sharon is making a large batch of soup. The soup reaches a height of 25 cm in a cylindrical pot whose diameter is 30 cm . To store the soup for later, she'll pour it into ice cube molds where each cube has edges that are 7 cm long. How many whole cubes can Sharon make?

To find out how many ice cubes Sharon can make, we first calculate the volume of soup in the pot. The formula for the volume of a cylinder is \( V = \pi r^2 h \). The radius \( r \) is half the diameter, so \( r = 15 \) cm (since the diameter is 30 cm), and the height \( h \) is 25 cm. Calculating the volume: \[ V = \pi (15)^2 (25) \approx 3.14 \times 225 \times 25 \approx 1767.75 \, \text{cm}^3 \] Next, we calculate the volume of one ice cube. The formula for the volume of a cube is \( V = s^3 \), where \( s \) is the length of a side. For Sharon's ice cube: \[ V = (7)^3 = 343 \, \text{cm}^3 \] Now, we divide the total volume of soup by the volume of one ice cube: \[ \text{Number of cubes} = \frac{1767.75}{343} \approx 5.16 \] Since she can only make whole cubes, Sharon can create 5 whole ice cubes.