Metric Conversions

[Victoria Dao 3G]

Hi! I forgot a lot of my acronyms from AP Chem over the summer, so do you guys have any acronyms to help remember the metric conversions? (kilo, hecto, deci, centi...)

[Mackenzie Fernandez 3G]

hi!

Mine is kind of weird. I do:

the Great Master Knight Did Commit Murder Under No Pretenses.

G - giga
M - mega
K - kilo
D - deci
C - centi
M - milli
u - micro
n - nano
p -pico

It is so weird that I have no trouble remembering it. I don't remember where it is from, but it works. :)

[Helena Hu 3E]

^^ woah.. I've never heard of that one but it seems a lot better than the one I used to use. Thanks!
The one I've always been taught it
King Henry Died Unusually Drinking Chocolate Milk
K- kilo
H- hecto
D- deca
U- unit (meter, liter, gram, etc.)
D- deci
C- centi
M- milli

[Alex Mele 2A]

Slightly different from the first answer, but my high school chem teacher taught us "King Henry Died by Drinking Chocolate Milk"
to remember Kilo, Hecto, Deca, (base unit), Deci, Centi, Milli.

[Emilie_Paltrinieri_1K]

"King Henry Doesn't Usually Drink Chocolate Milk"

[Chinmayi Mutyala 3H]

hi!

Mine is kind of weird. I do:

the Great Master Knight Did Commit Murder Under No Pretenses.

G - giga
M - mega
K - kilo
D - deci
C - centi
M - milli
u - micro
n - nano
p -pico

It is so weird that I have no trouble remembering it. I don't remember where it is from, but it works. :)

Whoa! This one is so helpful for this class specifically since we need to remember more prefixes. I used to use King Henry Died By Drinking Chocolate Milk!

[Andrew Yoon 3L]

There is an acronym:
King Henry Doesn’t Usually Drink Chocolate Milk

K- kilo
H- hecto
D- deca
U- base unit
D- deci
C- centi
M- milli

[jia207]

Could someone explain the way to use this acronym? How many times you move the decimal places moving up or down, I am a little rusty on it. In addition, what is the "middle" starting point?

[Savannah Torella 1L]

Could someone explain the way to use this acronym? How many times you move the decimal places moving up or down, I am a little rusty on it. In addition, what is the "middle" starting point?

When using the acronym "King Henry Died By Drinking Chocolate Milk," the starting point is the "By" since the B stands for base unit. From that base unit, you count how many times you move from the base unit from the new unit you are looking for. That represents the number of times you move the decimal point. If you are moving in front of the base unit, you are moving the decimal place to the left. Vise versa goes for moving behind the base unit. For example, going to a base unit of 1 meter to km or "king," you would get .001km.

[Susan Chamling 1F]

For the acronym mentioned a couple comments above, the Great Master Knight Did Commit Murder Under No Pretenses, it goes
G - giga 10^9
M - mega 10^6
K - kilo 10^3
D - deci 10^-1
C - centi 10^-2
M - milli 10^-3
u - micro 10^-6
n - nano 10^-9
p -pico 10^-12

In this acronym Giga is the prefix with the largest value, 10^9 or 1,000,000,000. As you move down the acronym the values of the prefixes become smaller, and so we move the decimal left. For example, from centi to milli we would move the decimal left by one place, going from .01 to .001. The middle starting point in terms of a base unit is not stated here.