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I know that answerable questions are preferred and if this is closed that’s okay, but didn’t know a better place to ask.

I am sure that everyone has different ways of quickly thinking about unit conversions and if you shared some if your favourites perhaps this could turn into a comprehensive list of the best tips and tricks.

For a very basic example: divide pounds by 2, drop last number and subtract (approx -10%)

Rico
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    What do you mean, "divide pounds by 2, drop last number and subtract (approx -10%)" ? What are you converting between? And I don't think this is a bad question at all. Best thing in general is to learn what the conversions are (e.g. 16 ounces in a pound; 2.2 pounds in a Kg etc ) – Adam Rubinson Jul 24 '21 at 21:33
  • In that example I'm converting between, well, pounds and kilograms. From pounds to kilograms to be more specific. – Rico Jul 25 '21 at 08:35

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For converting between Celsius and Fahrenheit, what I find useful is to have memorized the table of multiples of $5^{\circ}{\rm C}$ in Fahrenheit.

Of course, everybody should know the freezing and boiling points $0^{\circ}{\rm C} = 32^{\circ}{\rm F}$ and $100^{\circ}{\rm C} = 212^{\circ}{\rm F}$. But besides that, I mostly use the $10 \rm{-} 30^{\circ}{\rm C}$ range. So:

  • $10^{\circ}{\rm C} = 50^{\circ}{\rm F}$
  • $15^{\circ}{\rm C} = 59^{\circ}{\rm F}$
  • $20^{\circ}{\rm C} = 68^{\circ}{\rm F}$ (room temperature)
  • $25^{\circ}{\rm C} = 77^{\circ}{\rm F}$
  • $30^{\circ}{\rm C} = 86^{\circ}{\rm F}$

Then you need to know that an increment of $1^{\circ}{\rm C}$ correspons to an increment of $1.8^{\circ}{\rm F}$.

Anonymous
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