Converting: Metric Style

Most of you probably know how to convert between metric units, but if not, this is how you do it with powers of ten.

Metric units all go up by powers of ten from the base unit (such as liters, meters, and grams). So 1m is equal 10²cm (100 cm), or 1m is equal 10⁻³ km (.001 km). Yes, the power can be positive or negative. It will be positive if the unit you are converting to a unit smaller than the original unit used (m→cm). While, the power will be negative if the unit being converted to is bigger than the original (m→km). The powers I keep mentioning refer to scientific notation. In math, you may have seen something such as 4.5•10². This really means 450. Since the power is 2, you move the decimal 2 places to the right. If the power was -2 (4.5 •10⁻²), you would move the decimal 2 places to the left (.045).

 

So positive = decimal moves right, and negative = decimal moves left