Unit Conversion Practice
Ever wonder how scientists work with different measurement systems? Unit conversions help translate between them! Let's see how it works with some examples.
To convert units, we use conversion factors where we multiply by a fraction that equals 1. For instance, when converting 100 km to meters, we multiply by 1000m/1km because this equals 1, giving us 100,000 meters.
Weight conversions follow the same pattern. Converting 5 lbs of chicken to grams means multiplying by 453.6g/1lb, resulting in 2268 grams. For height, we might need multiple steps - like converting 6 ft to cm by first changing to inches 12in/1ft, then to centimeters 2.54cm/1in.
Pro Tip: When setting up unit conversions, write out all your units to make sure they cancel properly. The units you start with should cancel out to leave you with the units you want!
Volume and time conversions work similarly. For volume, we might convert 12,000 ml to gallons through liters first. With time, we can convert seconds to days by stepping through minutes and hours as intermediate units.