Homework 1: Unit Conversion
Convert the following quantities from their original units to the requested units. You must show
your work to receive full credit. The phrase “Go through blah or blah” means that one of your
conversion factors must include some power of the blah unit.
1. Pluto’s average radius is about 1200 km. Convert this number to feet. Make sure your
conversion chain goes through miles.
2. There are about 3 ´ 1020 gallons of water in all the earth’s oceans. Convert this volume to
cubic kilometers. Go through liters.
3.
Convert 23 trillion cubic feet (volume of natural gas used in US in 2008) to cubic
kilometers. If this volume were shaped like a cube, how long would one side of the cube be
in miles?
4. 9.8 m/s2 (the acceleration due to gravity) to mil/(ms)2 A mil is 0.001 inch and “ms” is
millisecond.