I'm not just going to give you the answers, because you really need to learn how to do this, and it's really very easy when you know how, which I am going to try and impart to you. You just have to convert from one unit to another. To convert units, you either multiply or divide by the ratio of the two units. That means you need to know how many of something in one unit equals the thing in the other unit. Let's consider inches to centimeters (question #1).
There are 2.54 cm per inch. So, 2.54 is the ratio to have to multiply or divide your number - in this case, 5 ft 9 inches. First, since we're converting from inches to cm, you have to convert her height into inches - so, 5 ft * 12 inches/ft + 9 inches = 69 inches. (Notice that converting feet to inches is also a conversion.)
So, now we have to figure out whether to multiple or divide. What you're trying to do is making sure you cancel out the units you don't want and substituting the units you do want, to make sure you have the unit you don't want in the numerator and the denominator so you can get rid of it. Pretend units are like numbers, or unknowns, and we want to cancel them out. This sounds complicated but it's really very simple.
In this example, we're trying to convert 69 inches, and the conversion ratio is 2.54 cm/inch. Let's see what happens if we multiple the two. We get
69 inch x 2.54 cm/inch = 175.26 (inch x cm / inch)
I multiplied the numbers, and I multiplied the units. Now, the units are (inch x cm/inch). This is just like (5 x 3 / 3) - the 3's cancel out (leaving just 5); similarly, the "inch"es cancel out, leaving just "cm". So, the result is :
175.26 cm
At this point, the question is: what unit did we want to end up with? The answer (from your question) is "cm." So, we have exactly the unit what we wanted - the result in just cm. So we're probably done. But let's try dividing the two numbers instead of multiplying, just for fun:
69 inch / 2.54 cm/inch = 21.17 (inch x inch / cm)
In the units part, we now have (inch x inch / cm), or square inches per centimeter. Nothing cancels out. This doesn't make any sense as a unit at all, and is certainly not what we wanted to end up with as our unit (cm). So, in this case, multiplying is the way to go, and we're done. The answer is 175.26 cm.
You do all other unit conversions exactly the same way, except that degrees F to C is a little trickier because you have to not only multiply, you also have to add. The formula there is take the degrees F, subtract 32, and multiply by 5/9. This one is a bit trickier, but if you do all the other problems, by the time you get to the last one, you should probably be able to figure it out on your own.
2007-01-24 02:56:18
·
answer #1
·
answered by Gary B 5
·
2⤊
0⤋