In detail how do you convert units?

Answer 1

The easiest way to convert units is to go to Google.comand type your conversion question directly into the search window. Google calculates the answer for you, and you aren't using the search results. Here is a list of examples of what you would type in:

24 cups in gallons

45 square feet in square meters

34 ft^3 in yards^3

3 km/hr in m/s If you leave both fields blank (e.g. "km to mi"), it will show the unit conversion factor. Google also has a calculator feature (Refer to the link in the Related Questions section) --- The problem with using Google, however, is that it is not very enlightening nor quick, and on a test in school, for example, you do not have access to Google. You can use the educational procedure listed below. The below is a very powerful and easy method to convert numbers from one unit to another.

Let us take an easy example.

Say you have 2.7 meters and you want to convert it to centimeters.

You know that 1m = 100 cm

Think about how we can take the equation 1m = 100 cm

and divide both sides by

1m

and get

1= 100 cm/m. Note that we have only "re-arranged" the equation.

You know that you can multiply any number by 1 and not change its value. It is also true that you can multiply any number by 100 cm/m

and not change its value because

100 cm/m equals 1 If we take the number

2.7m and multiply it by

100 cm/m you will have the same distance, just expressed in different units.

Here is the entire process expressed mathematically...

2.7m = 2.7m X 1 = 2.7m X 100 cm/m = 270 m cm/m = 270 cm Notice how the meters cancel each other out and you are left with centimeters.

This always works

Here is a harder example.

Convert the speed 8,100 m/s to the units of km/hr

As discussed above since 1000m = 1 km we will in this case divide both sides of the equation by 1000m and get

1=(1/1000)km/m.

when we multiply by that and cancel out the meters, we get

8,100 m/s = 8.1 km/s.

Note that we could have instead taken the equation 1000m = 1 km and divided both sides by

1km to get 1 =1000m/km and then divided by 1000km/m and the meters would have still canceled out. Here is the math.. 8,100m/s = 8,100m/s / 1000m/km = 8.100 (m/s) / (m/km)= 8.1 km/s

Now to convert the seconds to hours, we first convert the seconds to minutes by taking the equation 1min = 60s and dividing both sides by

1min to get the equation

1 = 60s/min

When we multiply

8.1 km/s by the above, we get 480 km/min

We do the same thing with the equation

1hr = 60 min to get

1 = 60 min/hr and when we multiply, we get

28,800 km/hr which is in the correct units.

Of course one would do all of these steps at once making it a very simple matter. For some reason it is not the law for physic teachers to tell their students about this method. (see related link which goes into this process in more detail)