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We treat the unit words like factors and ‘divide out’ common units like we do common factors.
Mary Anne is inches tall. What is her height in feet?
Convert 66 inches into feet. | |
Multiply the measurement to be converted by 1. | inches |
Write 1 as a fraction relating the units given and the units needed. | |
Multiply. | |
Simplify the fraction. | |
Notice that the when we simplified the fraction, we first divided out the inches.
Mary Anne is feet tall.
Rene bought a hose that is yards long. Convert the length to feet.
54 feet
When we use the Identity Property of Multiplication to convert units, we need to make sure the units we want to change from will divide out. Usually this means we want the conversion fraction to have those units in the denominator.
Ndula, an elephant at the San Diego Safari Park, weighs almost tons. Convert her weight to pounds.
We will convert tons into pounds, using the equivalencies in [link] . We will use the Identity Property of Multiplication, writing as the fraction
Multiply the measurement to be converted by 1. | |
Write 1 as a fraction relating tons and pounds. | |
Simplify. | |
Multiply. | |
Ndula weighs almost 6,400 pounds. |
Arnold’s SUV weighs about tons. Convert the weight to pounds.
8600 pounds
A cruise ship weighs tons. Convert the weight to pounds.
102,000,000 pounds
Sometimes to convert from one unit to another, we may need to use several other units in between, so we will need to multiply several fractions.
Juliet is going with her family to their summer home. She will be away for weeks. Convert the time to minutes.
To convert weeks into minutes, we will convert weeks to days, days to hours, and then hours to minutes. To do this, we will multiply by conversion factors of
Write 1 as . | |
Cancel common units. | |
Multiply. | |
Juliet will be away for 90,720 minutes. |
The distance between Earth and the moon is about miles. Convert this length to yards.
440,000,000 yards
A team of astronauts spends weeks in space. Convert the time to minutes.
151,200 minutes
How many fluid ounces are in gallon of milk?
Use conversion factors to get the right units: convert gallons to quarts, quarts to pints, pints to cups, and cups to fluid ounces.
1 gallon | |
Multiply the measurement to be converted by 1. | |
Simplify. | |
Multiply. | |
Simplify. | 128 fluid ounces |
There are 128 fluid ounces in a gallon. |
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