Metric System Basics and Conversions
The metric system,part of the SI system, is based around the number 10. It is therefore easy to visualize and work with numbers in the metric system. For most situations there are only a few important metric units to know (although there are many others).
meter (m) – the 1 (one) unit of length, used for measuring length and distance, (about 3 feet and 3 inches)
liter (l) – the 1 unit of volume, used for measuring liquids and gasses, almost a quart
kilogram (kg) – the 1 unit of mass, used for measuring weight, a little over 2 pounds
gram (g) – a common unit of mass which is 0.001 kg (about the weight of a paperclip) – notice that it is not the 1 unit.
In addition to knowing these 1 units, it is important to learn these prefixes.
centi -0.01 (one hundredth) – or one part in 100
milli -0.001 (one thousandth) – or one part in a thousand
kilo – 1000 (one thousand)
So, a centimeter (cm) is 0.01 of a meter (one hundredth), and a millimeter (mm) is 0.001 (one thousandth) of a meter, and a kilometer (km) is 1000 meters (thousand).
Fill in the following sentences based on what you learned above:
A milliliter (ml) is: ______of a liter.
A milligram (mg) is: ______of a gram.
A kiloliter (kl) is: ______liters.
A centiliter (cl) is: ______of a liter.
Converting within the metric system is easy if you know the basic 1 units and their prefixes. Simply multiply by or divide by the appropriate multiple of 10.
For example:
300 ml = 0.3 liters (l). There are a thousand ml in a liter, and we’re converting from a small unit (ml) to a large unit (liter) so we divide by 1000.
100 km = 100,000 meters (m). There are 1000 meters in a kilometer and we’re converting from a large unit (km) to a small unit (m) so we multiply by a thousand.
Now do these problems below!
1. 600 mg = ______g
2. 1200 cm = ______m
3. 50 liters = ______ml
4. 660 meters = ______km
5. 7000 ml = ______liters
6. 876 meters = _____ mm.
7. 0.001 km = ______meters Now turn the page over, there's more on the back!
Here's a little more.... Americans are beginning to become more familiar with the metric system in one important way - computers and digital technology use metric system prefixes.
You are probably familiar with the prefixes kilo, mega and giga if you know even a little about how computers (your phone is a computer!) store information or process (how fast it can use) it..
Computers store data on hard disks or flash drives that record the fundamental (basic) unit of that data in bytes. A byte is a string of 8 digits. A digit is just a number and computers use only two digits (one and zero - called bits by the way!). In fact digital means two from the root prefix di- which means two (for two digits) from Greek. Greek and Latin languages (what the Romans spoke) are the basis of all the Western languages (French, German, English, Spanish, etc.). And of course we live in Western Culture here in the United States having inheritedthat legacy from the founders of our country who were emigrants fromGreat Britain.
Use the prefixes below to solve the problems. Remember that a byte is the fundamental or basic unit of data.
kilo = 1000 (thousand)
mega = 1,000,000 (million)
giga = 1,000,000,000 (billion)
tera = 1,000,000,000,000 (trillion)
1. Your computer has a hard drive that can store 600 gigabytes. How many bytes is that? Write the number.
2. Your computer has a 3 gigahertz processor. How fast can it process bytes? Hertz means one cycle per second or one byte processed per second. Write the number.
3. Your flash drive which you use to carry data to a friend's computer to print our your history report has 16 megabytes of data storage. How many bytes does it store? Write the number.
4. Your computer has 16 gigabytes of RAM (RAM stands for random access memory and is used to temporarily load bytes read from the hard drive to run programs and apps). How many bytes can your RAM store? Write the number.
5. You have a 32 gigabyte iPod. How many bytes of music, video, pictures, podcasts, etc. can it store? Write the number.
6. Your phone has a 64 megabyte flash drive. How many bytes is that? Write the number.
7. It wasn't that long ago that storage was measure in smaller amounts like kilobytes. If you have an early computer than can only store 70 kilobytes of data, how much is that? Write the number.
8. At home your family backs up all the hard drives on all the computers in the house (you do back up your data right...????!!!) on a NAS (network attached storage) that can store 100 terabytes. How many bytes is that? Write the number.