PA_M7_S3_T2_Converting
Metric Mass Transcript
Converting units of mass in the
straightforward than converting
because I'm still starting with
on either multiplying by powers
metric system is much more
units of weight in the English System,
a base unit and everything else is based
of 10 or dividing by powers of 10.
Let's look at this conversion. I want to change 0.025 dag (dekagrams) to
mg (milligrams).
I am going to write down the number of dag (dekagrams) I have, and I
don't have a direct conversion so I'll have to make a couple. There are
10 g (grams) in one dekagram, and there are 1000 mg (milligrams) in every
gram that I have. This allows me to cancel dag and g and now it's a
matter of multiplying 0.025 * 10 ** 1000 which is 10,000 mg (milligrams).
There are four zeroes in 10,000 so I'm going to move my decimal place
four units to the right. I'm going to get 250 mg in 0.025 dag.
If I go to my chart, I start at dekagrams and I'm moving to milligrams. I
move 1, 2, 3, 4 spaces which means when I start with 0.025 I simply move
my decimal place four units and I get 250 mg just like I found before.
This is how you convert units of mass when working with metric units.