Units and Unit Conversions

Units are a very important part of scientific values and calculations. Without units, the
numbers scientists talk about have no meaning. For example, saying "it is 20 outside
today" doesn’t mean anything unless you attach a unit of measurement. "It is 20
degrees Fahrenheit outside today," means much more.

The units that most people from the United States are familiar with are the English
Units. For instance, you know that a football field is 100 yards long, or that the speed
limit on the highway is 65 miles per hour. Here are the common English units:

Most Common English Units

Physical Quantity Name of Unit Abbreviation

Weight pound lb

Length foot ft

Time second s

Temperature Fahrenheit °F

Amount of Substance mole mol

There are common examples of each of these in everyone's kitchen. For instance,
weight is used to describe a whole chicken - the chicken weighs three pounds. A simple
scale can be used to measure this. An example of length would be how a chocolate
chip cookie recipe tells you to place the dough an inch apart from each other on the
cookie sheet because the cookies tend to spread out when they bake. Time is used in
the kitchen when you set the egg timer for 35 minutes when baking a cake.
Temperature is also important when cooking because you need to know what
temperature to set the oven at when baking. For example, when baking a potato, the
oven should be set at 350 degrees Farenheit. The amount of a substance is also used
in that when you add two cups of water to a cake mix, there are so many moles in two
cups. You can measure two cups using a measuring cup. Items like teaspoons and
measuring cups measure volume.These are all examples of how these physical
quantities are used in the average kitchen.
Most people from other countries however, are not familiar with the English System,
instead they know the Metric System. All scientists had to decide on which units they
were going to use so that they could communicate. There is a standard unit that
scientists attach to all the major types of measurement. The International System (or le
Système International in French) is the standard of units that scientists use. For short,
this is called the SI system. The following table shows the fundamental units:

The Fundamental SI Units

Physical Quantity Name of Unit Abbreviation

Mass kilogram kg

Length meter m

Time second s

Temperature Kelvin K

Amount of Substance mole mol

Every measurement in science can be categorized into one of these physical quantities.
Mass is how much something weighs. Length is how long something is; the distance an
object covers. Time is the relationship between past, present, and future. Temperature
is how hot or cold something is. The amount of a substance is how much of something
there is.

Prefixes can be used in addition to the fundamental units given above. These prefixes
make the amount of something smaller or larger. A table of these is given below:

Prefixes for the SI System

Prefix Symbol Meaning

mega M 1,000,000
kilo k 1,000

hecto h 100

deka da 10

deci d 0.1

centi c 0.01

milli m 0.001

micro µ 0.000001

nano n 0.000000001

Unit conversions are an important part of scientific calculations. Many different

conversions are possible. For instance, you can convert from small SI units to large SI
units, or from large English Units to small English Units, or from English Units to SI
Units, and so on. Here are some examples.

Converting from small SI Units to large SI Units:

Say that you have traveled 8975 meters and you want to know how many kilometers
that is. Here is how you would do it.
1 km
8975 m x ---------- = 8.975 km
1000 m
You want the units to cancel out as is shown in the above example. Meters in the
numerator cancel with meters in the denominator, leaving only kilometers in the
numerator. You have just converted meters into kilometers!

Converting from large SI Units to small SI Units:

Let’s say that you determine your mass is 65 kilograms and you want to know how
many grams that is. Here’s how you would do it.
1000 g
65 kg x ---------- = 65,000 g
1 kg
You have just converted kilograms into grams! This is getting easy!
Converting from small English Units to large English Units:
Say that you are 72 inches tall, and you want to know how many feet that is. Here is
how you’d do it.
1 ft
72 in x ---------- = 6 ft
12 in
English Units are not as easy to work with as the SI Units, because you cannot use the
metric prefixes. With the metric prefixes, everything is a multiple of 10, and therefore
they are easy to manipulate. Even so, the idea is the same for English Units as it was
metric units.

Converting from large English Units to small English Units:

You know that a football field is 100 yards long and you want to know how many inches
that is. Here’s how you’d do it.
3 ft 12 in
100 yds x ---------- x ---------- = 3600 in
1 yd 1 ft
This example required an intermediate step, converting from yards to feet and then
from feet to inches. Other than that, you use the same approach as described above.

Converting from English Units to SI Units:

Let’s say that you know it is 45 miles from Champaign to Bloomington and you want to
know how many kilometers that is. Here’s how you would do it.
5280 ft 12 in 2.54 cm 1m 1 km
45 miles x ---------- x ---------- x ---------- x ---------- x ---------- = 72.42 km
1 mile 1 ft 1 in 100 cm 1000 m
In this example, there are a lot of intermediate steps, but this just goes to show that
starting from any unit of measurement, you can go to any other unit of measurement;
just do out all the steps!
Now that you have learned how to convert units, here is an automatic unit converter that will do
it for you!
Automatic Unit Converter