1. Metric Conversions, Dimensional Analysis, and Scientific Notation

2. International System of Units (SI)
Built on a set of seven metric units, called base units (base units contain no prefix…examples are grams, meter, and liter)
 Prefixes are added to the names of SI base units to represent quantities that are larger or smaller than the base units (examples are kilogram, centimeter, and milliliter)

3. Official SI Units of Measurement
Length – meter (m)
Mass – kilogram (kg)
Time – second (s)
Temperature – Kelvin (K)
Amount of substance – mole (mol)
Electric current – ampere (A)
Luminous intensity – candela (cd)

4. Metric Prefixes and Symbols
Giga —G 1,000,000,000
Mega —M 1,000,000
Kilo –k 1,000
Hecto –h 100
Deca –da 10
BASE
Deci – d
Centi – c
Milli – m
Micro--µ
Nano—n
Bigger than base
King Henry Died By Drinking Chocolate Milk
Smaller than base

5. How would you write…
--Millisecond --Decagram --Deciliter --Gram --Kilometer --Centigram

6. Which is larger? 1 centimeter or 1 meter? 1 decagram or 1 gram?
1 millimeter or 1 centimeter?
1 kiloliter or 1 liter?
1 decimeter or 1 hectometer?
1 gram or 1 milligram?
1 milliliter or 1 kiloliter?

7. Hardest part about converting between units…what are the equivalences??
This can be easy though! Use your chart to help you!
1 meter = _________ cm?
Start by thinking…which is larger? 1 meter or 1 centimeter?
Since a meter is larger, we are going to need many centimeters to equal 1 meter.
So how many centimeters do we need? Use the prefix “centi” to help you! “Centi-” means “hundreth” so a centimeter is a hundreth (1/100) of a meter.
Therefore it takes 100 centimeters to equal 1 meter.
100

8. What are the equivalences??
1000
1 kilometer = _________ meters?
Which is larger? 1 kilometer or 1 meter? 1 kilometer
Since a kilometer is larger, we are going to need many meters to equal 1 kilometer.
So how many meters do we need? Use the prefix “kilo” to help you! “Kilo-” means “thousand” so a kilometer is a thousand meters.
Therefore it takes 1000 meters to equal 1 kilometer.

9. What are the equivalences??
0.001
1 milligram = _________ gram?
Which is larger? 1 milligram or 1 gram? 1 gram
Since 1 gram is larger, a milligram will only be a fraction of the gram.
What fraction? Use the prefix “milli” to help you! “Milli-” means “thousandth” so a milligram is a thousandth (1/1000) of a gram.
1/1000 of a gram = gram
Therefore, 1 milligram = grams

10. Practice on your own! Example:
1000
1 kiloliter = ______ liters
1 gram = _______ centigrams
1 meter = ______ millimeters
1 decagram = _________ grams
1 liter = ________ deciliters
1 milliliter = _______ liters
1 centigram = ______ grams
100
1000 10 10
0.001
0.01

11. Derived SI units ***Made by combining multiple single SI units!
Area – square meter (m2)
Volume – cubic meter (m3)
Density – kg per cubic meter (kg/m3)
Molar mass – kg per mole (kg/mol)
Concentration – moles per liter (M)
Molar volume – cubic meters per mol (m3/mol)

12. Scary problem? (80) x (50) x (1) x (40) x (30) x (2) = ?
(40)(30) (20) (80) (50) (1)
No! Mark out commonalities on the top and the bottom when all numbers are multiplied!
(80) x (50) x (1) x (40) x (30) x (2) = 2 = 1
(40)(30) (20) (80) (50) (1)

13. Dimensional Analysis The technique of converting between units Uses:
1. Unit equalities – an equation that shows how different units are related (ex. 1 cm = 0.01 m)
2. Conversion factors – equation that always equals one (ex. 1cm/0.01m)
*Multiply the conversion factor so that units you do not want cancel, and the unit that you do want ends up on top.

14. Example Problems
A baker uses 1.5 tsp of vanilla extract in each cake. How much vanilla is consumed to make 800 cakes? (1 tsp = 5 mL)
Conversion factor: 1.5 tsp or cake
1 cake tsp
Use it!
800 cakes x tsp = 1200 tsp
1 cake
Answer  1200 tsp

15. What did we just do? Went from one unit to another…
Start with writing down the current unit
Use as many conversion factors as necessary to go from the current units to the desired units
Make sure the undesired units “cancel out” (by being located on the top and bottom) leaving only the desired unit on the top at the end

16. Example Problems
A person drinks eight glasses of water a day. Each glass contains 300 mL. How many mL will a person drink in 1 yr?
Conversion factors: 8 glasses of water or day
1 day gl. of water
Also: 1 glass of water or mL
300 mL glass of water
1 year x 365 days x 8 gl. of water x mL =
1 year day gl. of water
Answer  876,000 mL

17. Practice on your own! Example:
A roll of copper wire contains 15 m of wire. What is the length of the wire in centimeters?
Start by writing down the current units
15 meters
Use conversion factors to go from current unit (meters) to desired unit (centimeters)
15 meters x centimeters = 1500 cm
1 meter

18. Dimensional Analysis Convert 18 inches to feet
Convert 6489 feet to miles
(Note: 1 mile = 5280 feet)
18 inches x foot = 1.5 foot
12 inches
6489 feet x mile = miles
5280 feet

19. Double it Up! Convert 32 miles/hour to feet/second.
32 miles x 1 hour x 1 min x ft = 46.9 ft/sec
1 hour mins sec mile

20. Scientific Notation Steps for converting:
Insert a decimal into the original number to create a new number that is between the value of 1 and 10.
Ex. 123,000,000,000 
To find the exponent, count the number of places from the decimal to the end of the number.
Ex. In 123,000,000,000 there are 11 places therefore we write it as 1.23 x 1011
Numbers less than 1 (decimal numbers) will have negative exponents
Ex will be written as 1 x 10-6

21. Scientific Notation Practice!
Convert the following:
12,000
456
7,000,000
0.0043 30
0.30 8