IU won, and, thankfully, no one brought up any more math or chemistry. But Stef couldn't help getting it out of her head.
"10 yards is 9.1 meters," kept running through her head over and over again, and it wasn't even something important to know.
"A meter is 1.1 yards." Now that was something she should know. "And an inch is 2.54 centimeters." Where did that come from? "A meter is 100 centimeters."
"I DON'T CARE!" she actually shouted out loud as she walked back into her house. "The football field is 100 yards, so that would be about 91 meters... 9.1 times 10... move the decimal to the right one space."
"ARRGH! Get out of my head!"
She finally decided that the only way to exorcise the demon of metric conversion was to sit down and write out all the key conversions in her notebook. Curses!
And so she did. She found her notebook and before she went to bed she wrote down.
Meter: 1.1 yards
Kilometer: 1000 meters
Centimeter: 1/100 of a meter
Millimeter: 1/10 of a centimeter
Inch: 2.54 centimeters
Celsius to Fahrenheit: F=9/5C+32
Fahrenheit to Celsius: C=5/9(F-32)
Then she added a couple more that she thought she should memorize:
Kilogram: 2.2 pounds
Mile: 1.6 kilometers
Mile: 1760 yards
Showing posts with label Fahrenheit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fahrenheit. Show all posts
Monday, February 13, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
Celsius and Fahrenheit 3
Well, that was enough chemistry for the day. Later that evening was a football game, and Stef was looking forward to some time just hanging out with friends...
... That is, until she got a text from her mom saying that they were all on their way down to go to the game with her. It's not that family wasn't nice too... at home. It was just more work when they visited college!
So sure enough, the family SUV pulled up to Stefanie's house just in time to walk down to the stadium. Out jumped her eleven and twelve year old sister and brother, Sophia and Tom, along with her mom and step-dad. Her little brother and sister ran up and gave her a hug.
Then there were the usual, "How are you?" "How are classes going?" and finally the expected question from her step-dad, "How's chemistry?"
"Not bad so far," she said honestly, "although the prof is going to make us memorize how to convert Fahrenheit into Celsus, pounds into kilograms, and all that stuff."
"Oh, that's easy," said Tom. "We had to do that all the time in Germany." Stefanie's mom and step-dad had just spent four months in Germany while she and her sister Stacy mostly stayed home to go to work in the summer. "To go from Celsius to Fahrenheit," Tom continued, "you multiply by 9, divide by 5, then add 32."
Her step-father took out his pocket notebook and wrote down the formula: F=9/5C+32.
"Yep, that's one of them," she said. "Then going the other direction it's C=5/9(F-32).
It was too much for her step-dad to resist. While they walked on, he launched into a lecture about why the formulas made sense. Mind you, no one was listening to him. Stefanie and her mom were whispering to each other in the front. Tom and Sophia were competing to see who could count more birds. Meanwhile, Stefanie's step-dad Ken muttered on and on to himself.
"It's easy to figure out the formulas if you forget them," he said. "It has to do with the fact that on the Celsius scale, 0 degrees (0°) is where water freezes and 100 degrees (100°) is where water boils. What the conversion formula does is it matches these temperatures to the places where water freezes in Fahrenheit (32°) and where water boils in Fahrenheit (212°).
"So if you're going from Fahrenheit to Celsius, first you subtract 32, like you were going from 32° in Fahrenheit to 0° in Celsius. Taking away 32 aligns the Fahrenheit scale with the Celsius scale. Or when you're going from Celsius to Fahrenheit, adding 32 at the end aligns the two scales.
"The other part of the conversion has to do with how much bigger a Celsius degree is or how much smaller a Fahrenheit degree is. If you subtract the 32° from the boiling point of water, 212°, then you can compare how the two types of degree relate to each other. 180 degrees on the one scale corresponds to 100 degrees on the other. So you can figure out how big a degree is in one scale compared to the other. Fahrenheit degrees are 180/100 times more (which reduces to 9/5). Celsius degrees are 100/180 times less (which reduces to 5/9).
"That's the ratio. You multiply a Celsius degree by 9/5 to get a Fahrenheit degree. You multiply the aligned Fahrenheit by 5/9 to get a Celsius degree. It all makes sense."
"Oh, I see," Stefanie cleverly responded as they arrived at the ticket booth, where her other sister Stacy was waiting. But of course no one had paid any attention to Ken's lovely explanation...
... That is, until she got a text from her mom saying that they were all on their way down to go to the game with her. It's not that family wasn't nice too... at home. It was just more work when they visited college!
So sure enough, the family SUV pulled up to Stefanie's house just in time to walk down to the stadium. Out jumped her eleven and twelve year old sister and brother, Sophia and Tom, along with her mom and step-dad. Her little brother and sister ran up and gave her a hug.
Then there were the usual, "How are you?" "How are classes going?" and finally the expected question from her step-dad, "How's chemistry?"
"Not bad so far," she said honestly, "although the prof is going to make us memorize how to convert Fahrenheit into Celsus, pounds into kilograms, and all that stuff."
"Oh, that's easy," said Tom. "We had to do that all the time in Germany." Stefanie's mom and step-dad had just spent four months in Germany while she and her sister Stacy mostly stayed home to go to work in the summer. "To go from Celsius to Fahrenheit," Tom continued, "you multiply by 9, divide by 5, then add 32."
Her step-father took out his pocket notebook and wrote down the formula: F=9/5C+32.
"Yep, that's one of them," she said. "Then going the other direction it's C=5/9(F-32).
It was too much for her step-dad to resist. While they walked on, he launched into a lecture about why the formulas made sense. Mind you, no one was listening to him. Stefanie and her mom were whispering to each other in the front. Tom and Sophia were competing to see who could count more birds. Meanwhile, Stefanie's step-dad Ken muttered on and on to himself.
"It's easy to figure out the formulas if you forget them," he said. "It has to do with the fact that on the Celsius scale, 0 degrees (0°) is where water freezes and 100 degrees (100°) is where water boils. What the conversion formula does is it matches these temperatures to the places where water freezes in Fahrenheit (32°) and where water boils in Fahrenheit (212°).
"So if you're going from Fahrenheit to Celsius, first you subtract 32, like you were going from 32° in Fahrenheit to 0° in Celsius. Taking away 32 aligns the Fahrenheit scale with the Celsius scale. Or when you're going from Celsius to Fahrenheit, adding 32 at the end aligns the two scales.
"The other part of the conversion has to do with how much bigger a Celsius degree is or how much smaller a Fahrenheit degree is. If you subtract the 32° from the boiling point of water, 212°, then you can compare how the two types of degree relate to each other. 180 degrees on the one scale corresponds to 100 degrees on the other. So you can figure out how big a degree is in one scale compared to the other. Fahrenheit degrees are 180/100 times more (which reduces to 9/5). Celsius degrees are 100/180 times less (which reduces to 5/9).
"That's the ratio. You multiply a Celsius degree by 9/5 to get a Fahrenheit degree. You multiply the aligned Fahrenheit by 5/9 to get a Celsius degree. It all makes sense."
"Oh, I see," Stefanie cleverly responded as they arrived at the ticket booth, where her other sister Stacy was waiting. But of course no one had paid any attention to Ken's lovely explanation...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)