Video Transcript
Which of the following values is one millimeter equivalent to? (A) 0.01 meters , (B) 0.0001 meters, (C) 0.001 meters, (D) 10 meters, (E) 0.1 meters.
There are two parts to the unit millimeter. The second part, meter, is the base unit. Meter is the base unit for measuring length. The prefix in front of the base unit changes the magnitude of the base unit. Here are some, but not all, of the SI prefixes and the corresponding multiplication factors. The multiplication factor tells us how each prefix changes the order of magnitude of the base unit. Each prefix changes the size of the base unit by a factor of 10.
The kilometer is 1000 times larger than a meter. And a millimeter is one one thousandths the size of a meter. In other words, there are 1000 millimeter in a meter. So we have found our answer, one millimeter is equivalent to 0.001 meters.
But before we wrap up this video, it’s worth noting that these expressions we’ve created are called conversion factors. We can use them to help us convert between units. For example, let’s see how we could’ve used a conversion factor to solve this problem. To use a conversion factor, we need to express it as a fraction. To convert, we simply multiply the quantity we want to convert by the conversion factor, making sure we arrange the conversion factor so that the unit we want to convert cancels. That way, we will end up in units of meters when you perform the calculation.
Either way, we found that one millimeter is equivalent to 0.001 meters, answer choice (C).
