(no subject)

[alexseanchai]

*mutters rude words about math, particularly unit conversions*

Comments

[aris_tgd]

I hate to be a bother, but has your class taught how to set up dimensional analysis? I know some people don't bother because they figure you've had that before, but if you haven't, I've always found it a nice visual tool for handling unit conversion stuff.

[alexseanchai]

I'm trying to remember if I ever knew what that is. To the Googles!

[aris_tgd]

The way I learned to do it was to draw a long horizontal line, and put your starting components and units on the top of the right side, then draw a vertical line after and put the conversion I want in the next section. (I did this for chemistry, but it works for anything else you need to do conversions with.) So, for example, something like:

0.459g H2SO4 | mol H2SO4
-----------------------------------------------
[empty space]| (actual molar mass here) g H2SO4

= however many mol H2SO4

And then you go along and make sure that the top and bottom cancels out, and then at the end you ought to have remaining the units you're looking for. If you don't, or something doesn't cancel, that just indicates you need to go back and make sure your conversions aren't reversed. I still used it all the time at my job, even when I was only converting mL to uL and ppb to ppt.

[alexseanchai]

OH THAT THING. :)

[aris_tgd]

Yeah, that thing! I just try to remember whenever unit conversions are a pain in the ass, it's a tool that's specifically meant to make it easier.

[alexseanchai]

:) thanks