Formula to convert demensions to cubic inches?

Answer 1

Inches are a units of measure for length. When you use square inches, you have units for area. Area is usually considered length times height. Cubic inches are units of volume, which is length times height times depth for dimensioned drawings. These might also be length times width times depth for something like a swimming pool. If your object or drawing has been dimensioned in units other than inches, and they are still units of measure for length, like feet, yards, centimeters, kilometers, miles, or fathoms, the conversion is done by a process called cancelling the units. This is described pretty well in standardized test prep books (the Kaplan GRE prep book for the math part is an example). Example 1: Object is 25 feet long (length dimension) by 10 feet high (height) by 8 ft wide - maybe it is a cargo container. 25 feet times 12 inches per foot -> 25ft*12in/ft cancels the feet and gives you 25*12 inches, 300 inches for the length 10 feet times 12 inches per foot -> 10ft*12in/ft cancels the feet and gives you 10*12 inches, 120 inches for the height 8 feet times 12 inches per foot -> 8ft*12in/ft cancels the feet and gives you 96 inches for the width. The volume in cubic inches is then 300in*120in*96in This is the same as (25*10*8)cubic feet *(12*12*12)cubic inches per cubic foot. Example 2: A hypodermic syringe holds 3ml. ml is an abbreviation for milliliter, a unit of volume. A milliliter is the same as a cubic centimeter (cc), because the metric system is helpfully standardized on characteristics of water and base 10. Converting cubic centimeters to cubic inches -> cm*.394in/cm so cubic centimeter =(.394in*.394in*.394in) 3cc = 3cc* (.394in*.394in*.394in)/cc Note that this makes a small volume. You check your conversion for dimensioned volumes by noting if you are going from something big to small or the other way. If you start with larger units, when you convert the number will be larger too, because you need more small things to get to the big thing in all directions. If you are going from a smaller unit, like centimeter, to a larger, like inches, you need fewer inches in each direction to make up the same height, width, length or volume. I invite someone to rephrase this, especially the last paragraph.