Convert Units Safely
Convert Units Safely
We can convert from km/h (kilometres per hour) to m/s (metres per second) like this:
A kilometre has 1000 meters, and an hour has 3600 seconds, so a kilometre per hour is:
How did I know to make it 1000 / 3600, and not 3600 / 1000 (the other way
around)?
Example 1:
1000 𝑚
= 1
𝟏 𝒌𝒎
And it is safe to multiply by 1 (does not affect the answer) so we can do this:
The answer looks strange! But we aren't finished yet ... we can "cancel" any units that
are both top and bottom:
3000 𝑘𝑚.𝑚
= 3000 m
𝟏 𝒌𝒎
So, 3 km equals 3000 m. Well, we knew that, but I wanted to show you how to do
it systematically, so that when things get harder you will know what to do!
And the trick is to know that you will cancel when you finish, so make sure you write
the conversion the correct way around (so you can cancel afterwards).
1 𝑘𝑚 3 𝑘𝑚.𝑘𝑚
3 km × =
𝟏𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝒎 𝟏𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝒎
Example 2:
Let's use this method to solve the km/h to m/s conversion from the top of the page.
We will do it in two stages:
• from km/h (kilometres per hour) to m/h (metres per hour), then
Now "cancel out" any units that are both top and bottom:
Now, to go from m/h (meters per hour) to m/s (meters per second) we put the "3600
seconds in an hour" conversion "upside down" because we want an "h" on top (so they
will cancel later):
Then "cancel out" any units that are both top and bottom:
1000 𝑚
= 0.2777 m/s
𝟑𝟔𝟎𝟎𝒔
Doing it wrong (with the 3600 seconds/hour the other way around) gets this:
Summary
Note: Converting of units can only be performed with same physical quantities e.g. kilometre to
metre, miles to kilometre, pounds to kilograms, seconds to hours, etc.Sourced from
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