Conversions

[Shanzey]

I am having a little bit of trouble with understanding how to convert between grams and micrograms. In my section, my TA said the conversion of 2.29 x 10^-4 grams to micrograms would be 2.9 x 10^2 micrograms, but I am having trouble understanding how he did that.

[Jacob Motawakel]

To convert 2.29 x 10^-4 grams to micrograms, you would have to use the conversion factor of 1 x 10^-6 grams which equals 1 microgram. So by using this conversion, you would do (2.29 x 10^-4 grams) x (1 microgram/1 x 10^-6 grams) = 2.29 x 10^2 micrograms.

[DTingey_1C]

One easy way to do conversions that I learned in high school is to think of the prefixes in a line, so like this:

Kilo, hecto, deca, base unit, deci, centi, mili, micro... ect

And think of these in terms of their respective numbers like this:

10^3, 10^2, 10^1, 10^0, 10^-1, 10^-2, 10^-3, 10^-6

And, when you convert your simply moving the decimal point over the amount of time you move down the line. So, for example, if you are converting from kilometers to meters, you are moving to the right three times according to the thing I made above. So, move the decimal over three times. Ex: 100.000 km -> 100,000 m. For micrograms to grams, you will need to move the decimal 6 times to the left because a microgram in 1/10^6 of a gram. Hope this helps.