Chemistry Forums for Students > Physical Chemistry Forum
Quick Unit Converison Problem
Mikez:
how do I convert between m/s to k/h?
and
how does significant digits work? (my teacher is telling me that 1.000 has 4 significant digits???)
thanks
mike:
1000 metres in 1 km
60 seconds in 1 minute and 60 minutes in 1 hour
Significant digits:
All non-zero digits are significant: 1234 has four sig. fig.
zeros before a digit are not significant: 0.00054 has two sig. fig. (5 and 4)
zeros between digits are significant: 4008 has 4 sig. fig.
zeros after a digit and behind a decimal point are significant: 7.40500 has six sig. fig. (so your teacher is correct 1.000 has four sig. fig.)
zeros afte a digit but not behind a decimal point are generally not significant (but this is not always the case, and this is why scientific notation is prefered) for example: 96000 is ambigous which digits are significant (I would say definitely two, ie 9 and 6) so using scientific notation you can show which are significant: 9.6 x 104 (2 sig. fig.) or 9.60 x 104 (3 sig fig) etc etc
billnotgatez:
1 meter 60 seconds 60 minutes 1 kilometer 3.6 kilometers
-------- * ---------- * ---------- * -------------- = ---------------
1 second 1 minute 1 hour 1000 meters 1 hour
Borek:
60*60/1000 = ???
Thing is, I just happened to remember what the conversion factor is ;)
billnotgatez:
The way I depicted it shows how the units of measurement cancel out. Admittedly that is probably not the short hand or quick method.
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