Blame the French for Metric Measures!

WARNING! THIS BLOG TALKS ABOUT MATH!

Why do we need to measure things with meters, centimeters and millimeters in the United States?  We have inches, feet, miles and all that. Isn't that enough?  Of course not!!

Alright, so the US hasn't converted yet, is that because we are stubborn?  Maybe.  Would Americans be considered "bi-measureable"?  We can read two systems of measurement?

I guess the best thing to do is deal with it....

The easiest way to deal with it is learn "conversion factors".  I know, this is math, but we have to do it. 

It's not super hard if you are organized.  Some of you do this in your head already, for example
          1 minute = 60 seconds
          1 hour = 60 minutes
          1 kilometer = 1000 meters

Look at this handy-dandy conversion table:

We do conversions all the time and it is important for us because we are trying to understand something really huge like the solar system.  If we can convert the real distances to something we can handle on a smaller scale we will be able to make closer observations at the relationships of everything in our solar system; planets, comets, asteroids, space junk, and the Tesla convertible. 

The above gif is not a photo shop...Elan Musk really did it, look it up...

Anyway, back to conversions: 

Ha!  The next question is who watched that?  Did it help you understand how to make a conversion?

Conversions help us in our homes, at our jobs, taking the correct amount of prescription medicines.  Doing conversions is very important for our health and knowledge.