Video Transcript
What is 280 grams in kilograms?
So in this question, we’ve been asked to convert 280 grams into kilograms. For that, we need to remember the conversion between grams and kilograms. We can recall that 1000 grams is equal to one kilogram. In fact, that’s what the prefix “kilo” means. It means 1000. So one kilogram is equal to 1000 grams. But then what is one gram equal to in kilograms?
Well, to answer that, we can divide both sides of the equation by 1000. What that leaves us with is that one gram is equal to one 1000th of a kilogram. However, we’re not trying to find out how much one gram is in kilograms. But rather we’re trying to find out how much 280 grams is in kilograms.
So 280 grams is equal to 280 lots of one gram. But we know that one gram is equal to one thousandth of a kilogram. So we’ve got 280 lots of 1000th of a kilogram. We can simplify this to 280 divided by 1000 kilograms. And when we evaluate the fraction, we find that this is equal to 0.28 kilograms.
And the reason we say 0.28 and not 0.280 is because, in the question, we’ve been given the value of 280 grams to two significant figures, because that’s the first significant figure and that’s the second. There’s no decimal point here. So the zero is not significant.
Hence, we should give our answer to two significant figures as well, one two. And so we find that our final answer is that 280 grams is 0.28 kilograms.