Page 435 - Basic College Mathematics with Early Integers

412 C HAPTE R 5 I RATIO, PROPORTION, AND MEASUREMENT

PRACTICE 5 Example 5 Finding the Amount of Water in an Aquarium
A large oil drum contains
15 gal 3 qt of oil. How much An aquarium contains 6 gal 3 qt of water. If 2 gal 2 qt of water is added, what is the
will be in the drum if an total amount of water in the aquarium?
additional 4 gal 3 qt of oil Solution: beginning water : 6 gal 3 qt
is poured into it?
+ water added : + 2 gal 2 qt
total water : 8 gal 5 qt
Since 5 qt = 1 gal 1 qt, we have
8 gal 5 qt
2 2
= 8 gal + 1 gal 1 qt
= 9 gal 1 qt
The total amount of water is 9 gal 1 qt.

Work Practice 5

10 cm Objective Defining and Converting Metric System
Units of Capacity
10 cm
Thus far, we know that the basic unit of length in the metric system is the meter and
10 cm
that the basic unit of mass in the metric system is the gram.What is the basic unit of
capacity? The liter. By definition, a liter is the capacity or volume of a cube measur-
ing 10 centimeters on each side.
The following examples may help you get a feeling for metric capacities:
One liter of liquid is slightly more than one quart.
Many soft drinks are packaged in 2-liter bottles.
1 liter 1 quart The metric system was designed to be a consistent system. Once again, the pre-
fixes for metric units of capacity are the same as for metric units of length and mass,
as summarized in the following table:

Metric Units of Capacity

1 kiloliter 1kl2 = 1000 liters 1L2
1 hectoliter 1hl2 = 100 L
1 dekaliter 1dal2 = 10 L
2 liters 1 liter 1L2 1 L
1 deciliter 1dl2 = 1>10 L or 0.1 L
1 centiliter 1cl2 = 1>100 L or 0.01 L
1 milliliter 1ml2 = 1>1000 L or 0.001 L

The milliliter and the liter are the two most commonly used metric units of capacity.
Converting from one unit of capacity to another involves multiplying by powers
of 10 or moving the decimal point to the left or to the right. Listing units of capacity
in order from largest to smallest helps to keep track of how many places to move
the decimal point when converting.
Let’s convert 2.6 liters to milliliters. To convert from liters to milliliters, we
move along the chart 3 units to the right. Copyright 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

kl hl dal L dl cl ml

Answer 3 units to the right
5. 20 gal 2 qt