I beg my readers’ pardon, but I’m 500 miles from my kids and want to do what I can to help them with their homework. I created this page to help them with metric conversions.
| Thousands | Hundreds | Tens | Ones | Tenths | Hundredths | Thousandths |
| Kilometer
-liter -gram 103 |
Hectometer
-liter -gram 102 |
Dekameter
-liter -gram 101 |
meter
liter gram 100 |
decimeter
-liter -gram 10–1 |
centimeter
-liter -gram 10–2 |
millimeter
-liter -gram 10–3 |
The metric system is based on powers of 10. To convert from one metric unit to another of the same kind, all you need to do is move the decimal point. In the helper chart, each box represents a place value: the unit box (meter, liter, gram) is the ones, Deka is the tens, Hecto is the hundreds, and kilo is the thousands. To the right of the units column, deci is tenths, centi is hundredths, and milli is thousandths.
Let’s say you want to convert 4 meters to centimeters. Here’s how you do it.
Place the four in the meters box like this:
4 |
||||||
| Kilometer
-liter -gram 103 |
Hectometer
-liter -gram 102 |
Dekameter
-liter -gram 101 |
meter
liter gram 100 |
decimeter
-liter -gram 10–1 |
centimeter
-liter -gram 10–2 |
millimeter
-liter -gram 10–3 |
Now place the decimal in the lower right-hand corner of the measure to which you want to convert. In this case, we’ll place it in the centi(meter) box, like this:
4 |
. |
|||||
| Kilometer
-liter -gram 103 |
Hectometer
-liter -gram 102 |
Dekameter
-liter -gram 101 |
meter
liter gram 100 |
decimeter
-liter -gram 10–1 |
centimeter
-liter -gram 10–2 |
millimeter
-liter -gram 10–3 |
Now fill in any empty boxes between the number and the decimal (including the box with the decimal) with zeros (0’s), like this:
4 |
0 |
0. |
||||
| Kilometer
-liter -gram 103 |
Hectometer
-liter -gram 102 |
Dekameter
-liter -gram 101 |
meter
liter gram 100 |
decimeter
-liter -gram 10–1 |
centimeter
-liter -gram 10–2 |
millimeter
-liter -gram 10–3 |
And there you have your answer: 4 meters = 400 centimeters
Now let’s try something different.
Let’s say you want to convert 7000 meters to kilometers. Here’s how you do it.
Because each box is a power of 10, we’re going to put one number in each box, with the last digit on the right in the box that has our original unit. In this case, our last digit is zero, and our unit is meters, so we’ll put a 0 in the meters box and fill in the rest of the boxes to the left with our number:
7 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|||
| Kilometer
-liter -gram 103 |
Hectometer
-liter -gram 102 |
Dekameter
-liter -gram 101 |
meter
liter gram 100 |
decimeter
-liter -gram 10–1 |
centimeter
-liter -gram 10–2 |
millimeter
-liter -gram 10–3 |
Now place the decimal in the lower right-hand corner of the measure to which you want to convert. In this case, we’ll place it in the kilometer box, like this:
7. |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|||
| Kilometer
-liter -gram 103 |
Hectometer
-liter -gram 102 |
Dekameter
-liter -gram 101 |
meter
liter gram 100 |
decimeter
-liter -gram 10–1 |
centimeter
-liter -gram 10–2 |
millimeter
-liter -gram 10–3 |
Unless you need significant figures (if you don’t know what those are, don’t worry about it yet), start from the right and cross out or erase all zeroes until you get to a digit that isn’t a zero. In this case, all of the digits to the right of the decimal are zero, so we can remove them all.
7. |
||||||
| Kilometer
-liter -gram 103 |
Hectometer
-liter -gram 102 |
Dekameter
-liter -gram 101 |
meter
liter gram 100 |
decimeter
-liter -gram 10–1 |
centimeter
-liter -gram 10–2 |
millimeter
-liter -gram 10–3 |
And there you have your answer: 7000 meters = 7 kilometers.
Now let’s try one more:
Let’s say you want to convert 35 millimeters to meters. Here’s how you do it.
Because each box is a power of 10, we’re going to put one number in each box, with the last digit on the right in the box that has our original unit. In this case, our last digit is 5, and our unit is meters, so we’ll put a 0 in the meters box and fill in the rest of the boxes to the left with our number:
3 |
5 |
|||||
| Kilometer
-liter -gram 103 |
Hectometer
-liter -gram 102 |
Dekameter
-liter -gram 101 |
meter
liter gram 100 |
decimeter
-liter -gram 10–1 |
centimeter
-liter -gram 10–2 |
millimeter
-liter -gram 10–3 |
Now place the decimal in the lower right-hand corner of the unit to which you want to convert. In this case, we’ll place it in the meter box, like this:
. |
3 |
5 |
||||
| Kilometer
-liter -gram 103 |
Hectometer
-liter -gram 102 |
Dekameter
-liter -gram 101 |
meter
liter gram 100 |
decimeter
-liter -gram 10–1 |
centimeter
-liter -gram 10–2 |
millimeter
-liter -gram 10–3 |
In this case, we have an open box to the left of the number between the number and the decimal. Just like the first example, fill in the empty boxes between the number and the decimal, including the box with the decimal, with zeroes.
0. |
0 |
3 |
5 |
|||
| Kilometer
-liter -gram 103 |
Hectometer
-liter -gram 102 |
Dekameter
-liter -gram 101 |
meter
liter gram 100 |
decimeter
-liter -gram 10–1 |
centimeter
-liter -gram 10–2 |
millimeter
-liter -gram 10–3 |
And there you have your answer: 35 millimeters = 0.035 meters.
Here are some blank boxes that you can practice on.
| Kilometer
-liter -gram 103 |
Hectometer
-liter -gram 102 |
Dekameter
-liter -gram 101 |
meter
liter gram 100 |
decimeter
-liter -gram 10–1 |
centimeter
-liter -gram 10–2 |
millimeter
-liter -gram 10–3 |
| Kilometer
-liter -gram 103 |
Hectometer
-liter -gram 102 |
Dekameter
-liter -gram 101 |
meter
liter gram 100 |
decimeter
-liter -gram 10–1 |
centimeter
-liter -gram 10–2 |
millimeter
-liter -gram 10–3 |
| Kilometer
-liter -gram 103 |
Hectometer
-liter -gram 102 |
Dekameter
-liter -gram 101 |
meter
liter gram 100 |
decimeter
-liter -gram 10–1 |
centimeter
-liter -gram 10–2 |
millimeter
-liter -gram 10–3 |
Sunday Morning Greek Blog 
kilogram – kg, as prefixless base unit is called grave – gv, gram becomes milligrave, ton becomes kilograve
base unit of volume is stere, abbreviated st, equal to one cubic meter abbreviated m3, liter becomes millistere
metric angle is in grads, 400 grads are in full circle
temperature is in kelvins, room temperature is 300 kelvins
Comment by SI — March 30, 2025 @ 3:07 am |
I created this conversion chart to help my kids with math class at the time. Does your culture use the measuring system you’re describing? I don’t know too many that do. I have seen the “grad” setting on some calculators. Thank you for your contribution.
Comment by Scott Stocking — March 30, 2025 @ 12:44 pm |
Earlier that all was used once in France before nineteenth century, but sadly occult babylonian degrees prevailed. Meanwhile some not so consistent cgs/mks tinkerers came and basically they did not so good alterations to metric system like grams and liters.
Comment by SI — March 30, 2025 @ 3:23 pm
Fascinating! I’ve done some research in last couple years about the history of numbers and mathematics. I’ve known that the Babylonians had a sexagesimal system since grade school, but not sure what makes it “occult,” unless it’s because it was based on a study of lunar cycles. (Cajori’s work is my source. I don’t recall he said anything about religion.) Would you consider a clock to be based on the Babylonian system as well?
Comment by Scott Stocking — March 30, 2025 @ 4:11 pm
As of clock, only sexagesimal part is occult, since sexagesimals are akin to number of the beast. Number twelve is from different and opposite source, more akin to twelve apostles and twelve stars. Babylon does not deserve any inspiration to be drawn from it, since Babylon always was against God.
Comment by SI — March 31, 2025 @ 3:19 am
Like year is 365.2422 days long, similarly day is 86.4 kiloseconds long. Both have fractional endings. Since second is already used as base time unit, this is the only way to metricate clocks. Leap days and leap kiloseconds can be used to make both cycles fractionless.
Comment by SI — April 1, 2025 @ 9:50 am