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Converting measurements (1 Viewer)

Dash

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I was just wondering...

Say if you have something in meters and you want to convert it to nanometers...
Do you multiply it by 10^9 ???

And... If you have something in Hz and you want to convert it into MHz, do you divide it by 10^5 ???

I'm a little rusty :p

Thanx!!
 

Huy

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Originally posted by Dash
Say if you have something in meters and you want to convert it to nanometers...
Do you multiply it by 10^9 ???
Divide.

one meter = 1.0 x 10^9 meters

1m = 10^9nm
10m = 10^10nm

Say you have 10 metres, divided by 0.000000001
= 1 x 10^10nm

Originally posted by Dash
If you have something in Hz and you want to convert it into MHz, do you divide it by 10^5 ???
1 hertz = 1.0 10^-6 megahertz

Multiply by 10^6

...now I'm confused! :confused:

I always look at the answer/conversion and say to myself: "does this look right" and are the units correct (hertz, megahertz, cm, m, km, etc) and doing it from standards, eg

1m = 100cm etc
10m = 1000cm
100m ...

etc

Then punching in the numbers myself and moving decimal places around.
 
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Dash

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Sweet... Makes sense :)
Are there any other conversions that "should" be known?

EDIT: didn't you mean divide by 10^6 for MHz ???
 
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PoLaRbEaR

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Originally posted by Huy
Divide.

one meter = 1.0 x 10^9 meters

1m = 10^9nm
10m = 10^10nm

Say you have 10 metres, divided by 0.000000001
= 1 x 10^10nm
Multiplying by 1.0 x 10^9 is the same as dividing by 1.0 x 10^-9

Originally posted by Huy
1 hertz = 1.0 10^-6 megahertz

Multiply by 10^6


...now I'm confused!
:confused:
Yeh I think that's right...
 
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Huy

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Length and mass are the main ones.

1m, 1kg, etc.

The time ones aren't too difficult (sec, min, hr) but I don't expect to see many of them that you'd have to manipulate.

Scientific notation is really important (so know your orders of magnitude)

I'd say that you should know all your prefixes by now, the important ones anyway:

micro 10^-6
milli 10^-3
centi 10^-2
deci 10^-1
kilo 10^3
mega 10^6
giga 10^9

Anything else is superfluous.

Know your fundamental quantities (standard units, SI)

length - m
mass - kg
time - s
current - A (amperes)
thermodynamic temp - K (Kelvin)

I don't think you'd need to know such things as:

* amount of a substance - mol (moles)
(this is more to do with Chemistry)

* luminous intensity - cd (candela)

That would be about it...

Use your formula sheet too (it's there, why not use it ;))

Other minor things:

velocity - m/s
acceleration - m/s^2
force - Newtons (N)
momentum - kg.m/s

energy or work - Joules (J)
power - W (watts)
electric charge - C (coulomb)
p.d. - V (volts)
frequency - Hz
resistance - ohm
E field intensity - N/C (Newtons per coulomb)

That would be it...

(I may have missed a few minor ones :))


Edit
Originally posted by Dash
didn't you mean divide by 10^6 for MHz ???
Originally posted by PoLaRbEaR
Multiplying by 1.0 x 10^9 is the same as dividing by 1.0 x 10^-9
Now I'm confused with all the reciprocals and inverted (negative powers), etc.

Multiply by positive powers to get 'bigger' units (Hz to MHz)

Divide by negative powers to get 'smaller' units (m to nm)

Or you can still multiply by negative powers, but that only complicates things IMO.

Use what works for you, or how your brain works (your own logic will tell you this... I guess?)

LOL...

Multiply by positive indices to get smaller units
Multiply by negative indices to get larger units
Divide by positive indices to get larger units
Divide by negative indices to get smaller units
:confused:

I don't even know 100% now... :rofl:
 
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PoLaRbEaR

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Originally posted by Huy

Now I'm confused with all the reciprocals and inverted (negative powers), etc.

Multiply by positive powers to get 'bigger' units (Hz to MHz)

Divide by negative powers to get 'smaller' units (m to nm)

Or you can still multiply by negative powers, but that only complicates things IMO.

Use what works for you, or how your brain works (your own logic will tell you this... I guess?)
Are you talking about conversions??
 

Dash

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Originally posted by PoLaRbEaR
Are you talking about conversions??
Yea... as the thread states :)



Originally posted by Huy
Multiply by positive indices to get smaller units
Multiply by negative indices to get larger units
Divide by positive indices to get larger units
Divide by negative indices to get smaller units


I don't even know 100% now...
Hahaha!!! I get it, good explanations all round :)
 

Huy

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*phew*

Just came back from "UAI/HSC - Guidance/Counsel"

Glad you got it worked out Dash :)

And yes, I was talking about conversions Polarbear. ;)
 

PoLaRbEaR

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Originally posted by Huy
Multiply by positive powers to get 'bigger' units (Hz to MHz)

Divide by negative powers to get 'smaller' units (m to nm)
But this isn't converting...
 

Huy

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Originally posted by PoLaRbEaR
But this isn't converting...
Damn...

I'm sure it says
"Hz to MHz"
"m to nm"

I don't know WHAT I had meant to say by "smaller units" and "bigger units"

:rolleyes:

I'm going for a break...
 

PoLaRbEaR

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You said that by multiplying by positive powers you can convert Hz to MHz...
But if you multply 1Hz by 10^6 you don't get MHz if you're conversion...
 
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ND

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Originally posted by Huy
Divide.

one meter = 1.0 x 10^9 meters

1m = 10^9nm
10m = 10^10nm

You contradicted yourself, you said divide then proceeded to multiply.

Look, if you've got something in metres and want it in nanometres, multiply by 10^9.
 

Huy

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OK, I got it wrong.

If I ever see:

"Calculate the number of MHz in 30.5Hz" or "Calculate 135m in nanometers", I'll be sure to think of you two/three (maybe not Dash).

*sigh*

Not a good day for me... :(
 

Dash

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Bah!! I dunno what your all going on about....

When you convert Hz into MHz... you divide by 10^6
OR
You can multiply it by 10^-6

And when you convert meters into nanometers you multiply by 10^9
OR
You can divide by 10^-9

What's everyone stressed about? :p

EDIT: Huy, I think you should take a look at this :D
You sound particularly confused youself sometimes :p
 
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Rahul

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hahahhahah @ this confusion :D

fistly you will never convert the SI units to anything...eg: you wont have to convert m to nm, only nm to m.

so just use ananlogies by changing the smaller value to cm and the larger value to m. and think about them in that way, thats what i will be doing:D

hmm lets see...

mHz to Hz. multiply by 10<sup>6</sup>
nm to m. divide by 10<sup>9</sup>

use the analogy method...and take simple numbers...makes it a hella lot easier:D
 
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