how do you convert metrics?

Question

i forgot how to convert metrics like from millameters to meters! please teach me how to move the decimal around?

i know that the measurements are mm, cm, dm, m, hm, km

and please don't tell me to use a conversion generator online. i want to learn how to do this by hand. thanks

oops i mean

mm, cm, dm, m, dam, hm, km

Answer 1

It's basically just memorization.
Check out the table at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_prefix
for a list of prefixes.

"milli" means the word has something to do with "thousand", like "millipede" (the bug) means "thousand legs" ("ped" means "foot"). so when you get something like "millimeter", it literally means "a thousandth of a meter", which means you are measuring a length in a unit that is 1/1000 as long as a meter is.

example: say you have something that is 5 meters long. How many millimeters is it? Remember there are 1000 millimeters in a meter, so multiply 5 by 1000 to get 5000 millimeters.

Okay, say you wanted to express 5 meters as centimeters. "cent" is a base word for "hundred", so you should be able to remember that there are 100 centimeters per meter. Using the same method, 5 times 100 = 500 centimeters.

Now, what if you had something that was 400 millimeters long, and you wanted to convert it to centimeters? Remember that there are 1000 millimeters per meter, but only 100 centimeters per meter. That means there are 10 millimeters per centimeter (check the math, 1000/100). This time we are going to divide by 10, because centimeters are bigger than millimeters are. 400 divided by 10 is 40, which is our answer.

It's quite a bit of memorization, I have to admit. After you pound it into your head for a week or two it'll be second nature to you, though. For the record, nobody really expects you to know any prefixes aside from milli,centi and kilo. You can generally get away with using scientific notation for just about anything else, but that's a whole other barrel of monkeys.

Answer 2

Makes a lot of sense for everyone to use the same units. I was surprised to see one of the respondents to this question is a lab worker who does NOT use metrics, I thought it was the scientific world that went over to it first, and that public adoption was the difficult part. Pity they did not make the change earlier, then, that Mars probe would have gone into orbit and not crashed into the planet when someone used the wrong set of units. Since the Space industry is a new field of scientific activity, there was no reason for it to start out using anything other than metrics at the outset. I mean what was the intention to measure space craft in feet and inches? So Mrs Space Rider could order up a set of curtains from a Miami interior decoration store? Inevitably, the objection is made that change is expensive, but I have to tell you it does not get any cheaper the longer you leave it. All those road sign replacements made in old units, could have been replaced with metric units in the ongoing maintenance programme, and one day, there would not be any more to replace. No extra cost. Sensibly, the new signs might indicate both units for a while; the old units being shown as a small inset, perhaps, to ease familiarisation. Most surprising of all, is the USA adherence to the Imperial system of measurement: maybe it reflects back to better system of government?

Answer 3

1000 mm = 10 cm = 1 m = .1 dm = .01 hm = .001 km

Answer 4

1 cm = 10 mm
1 dm = 10 cm
1 m = 10 dm
1 km = 100 m
verify from

Answer 5

mm - milimeter is in terms of 1/1000 of a meter
cm - centimeter is in terms of 1/100 of a meter
dc - decimeter in terms of 1/10 of a meter
hm- hectometer is in term of hundreds 100's of meters
km - is in terms of thousands of 1000's meters

Therefore
1meter = 1000 mm or .001 meters
1 meter = 100 cm or .01 meters
1 meter = 10 dc or .1 meters

hm multiply meters by 100
km multiply meters by 100

A common recreational road race is the 5k or 5 kilometers which is also 3.1 miles. To convert km to miles in general multiply by .62.

Answer 6

The terms in metric are common to all the different units.
micro - one millionth
milli - one thousandth
centi - one hundredth
deci - one tenth
deca- ten
hecto- a hundred
kilo- a thousand
mega- a million

Thus there are 1000 millimetres in a metre
There are 100 centimetres in a metre
There are 10 decimetres in a metre
There are ten metres in a decametre
There are 100 metres in a hectometre
There are 1000 metres in a kilometre

Answer 7

Millimeters; 0.001

Centimeters; 0.01

Decimeters; 0.1

Se how that works? After the decimal, it goes tenths, hundredths,thousandths....etc.