Please help unit conversions?

Question

Can someone teach me an easier and faster way of converting really large units to really small ones. We have a physics work sheet and one of the questions is Convert 7.35 gigameters which is 7.35 x 10^9

in milimeters...i can do it but it takes a long time because i first change the unit from giga to mega to kilo than to milli.

Plz help i've already been asked to change 62.19 years into nano seconds. I got 6.219 x 10^6 nanoseconds. Is that right?

Answer 1

Work out the conversion values, then multiply.  I find it easiest to go to and from meters...

1 gigameter is 10^9 meters

1 meter is 10^3 millimeters

So

1 gigameter is 10^9 * 10^3 or...

10^12 millimeters

So finally,

7.35 gigameters = 7.35*10^12 millimeters.

The nice thing about metric measures is that they are all powers of 10, so they are easy to multiply.

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Your second problem is a little more involved.

1 Year = 365 Days

1 Day = 24 Hours

1 Hour = 60 minutes

1 Minute = 60 seconds

1 second = 10^9 nanoseconds

So...

1 Year = 365*24*60*60*10^9 nanoseconds

or

3.1536*10^9 nanoseconds

So, 62.19 years is approx.

1.96122 * 10^18 nanoseconds.

Note that this is an approximation.