• Best of luck to the class of 2024 for their HSC exams. You got this!
    Let us know your thoughts on the HSC exams here
  • YOU can help the next generation of students in the community!
    Share your trial papers and notes on our Notes & Resources page
MedVision ad

Converting measurements (1 Viewer)

Dash

ReSpEcTeD
Joined
Jul 17, 2003
Messages
1,671
Location
nExT dOoR fOoL!
Gender
Male
HSC
2003
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

Active Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2002
Messages
5,240
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
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.
 
Last edited:

Dash

ReSpEcTeD
Joined
Jul 17, 2003
Messages
1,671
Location
nExT dOoR fOoL!
Gender
Male
HSC
2003
Sweet... Makes sense :)
Are there any other conversions that "should" be known?

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

PoLaRbEaR

The Bear
Joined
Apr 13, 2003
Messages
253
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2003
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...
 
Last edited:

Huy

Active Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2002
Messages
5,240
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
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:
 
Last edited:

PoLaRbEaR

The Bear
Joined
Apr 13, 2003
Messages
253
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2003
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

ReSpEcTeD
Joined
Jul 17, 2003
Messages
1,671
Location
nExT dOoR fOoL!
Gender
Male
HSC
2003
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

Active Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2002
Messages
5,240
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
*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

The Bear
Joined
Apr 13, 2003
Messages
253
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2003
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

Active Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2002
Messages
5,240
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
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

The Bear
Joined
Apr 13, 2003
Messages
253
Location
Sydney
Gender
Male
HSC
2003
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...
 
N

ND

Guest
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

Active Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2002
Messages
5,240
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
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

ReSpEcTeD
Joined
Jul 17, 2003
Messages
1,671
Location
nExT dOoR fOoL!
Gender
Male
HSC
2003
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
 
Last edited:

Rahul

Dead Member
Joined
Dec 14, 2002
Messages
3,647
Location
shadowy shadows
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
 
Last edited:

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)

Top