Show Thinking Metric Here are some tips ups for going metric yourself Some of the key units of the metric system are are very close to units we are familiar with so close that they can be considered about equal for mental picture purposes Learn these and a afew afew afew few prefixes and its it's not hard to figure up or down from there THE METER for example is just a little longer than a yard roughly 11 yards The liter is very close to a aquart aquart aquart quart about quarts The kilogram is a little more than two pounds lbs Ibs to be exact Now the prefixes Kilo means one thousand A kilometer is therefore one thousand meters Centi means one one hundredth So a centimeter centime ter is one one-hundredth one of a meter Milk Milli means one thousandth one That prefix causes a lot of confusion because Americans associate it incorrectly incorrectly incorrectly with the word million There are other prefixes all aU signifying some multiple of 10 but this a good starter set CONVERTING FROM metric to Am measurements to it complicated But working within the metric system is a snap For example to calculate the number of centimeters in a kilometer kilometer kilo kilo- meter all aU you have to do is multiply 1000 by All metric calculations are similarly easy Its It's really just a matter matter mat mat- ter of moving the decimal point For comparison try quickly calculating the number of inches in a mile 12 times |