Does high pressure rise and low pressure sink

Light from the sun reaches the earth in 8.3 minutes. the velocity is 3.00 x 10^8 m/s. how far is earth from the sun? i know how to get to d = (3 x 10^8 m/s)(498 sec). i just don't know how to get from there to the answer being 1.5 x 10^11 m.

If two students are running down the hall toward each other, trying to get to class, and they have the same mass and acceleration, what will happen when they collide? will their forces cancel out or will each one experience a reaction?

The man of mass m1 and the woman of mass m2 are standing on opposite ends of the platform of mass m0 which moves with negligible friction and is initially at rest with s = 0. the man and woman begin to approach each other. derive an expression for the displacement s of the platform when the two meet in terms of the displacement x1 of the man relative to the platform.