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Conversion of units is the conversion of the unit of measurement in which a quantity is expressed, typically through a multiplicative conversion factor that changes the unit without changing the quantity. This is also often loosely taken to include replacement of a quantity with a corresponding quantity that describes the same physical property.
The first group of metric units are those that are at present defined as units within the International System of Units (SI). In its most restrictive interpretation, this is what may be meant when the term metric unit is used. The unit one (1) is the unit of a quantity of dimension one. It is the neutral element of any system of units. [2]
The other units of length and mass, and all units of area, volume, and derived units such as density were derived from these two base units. Mesures usuelles ( French for customary measures ) were a system of measurement introduced as a compromise between the metric system and traditional measurements.
A metric prefix is a unit prefix that precedes a basic unit of measure to indicate a multiple or submultiple of the unit. All metric prefixes used today are decadic.Each prefix has a unique symbol that is prepended to any unit symbol.
The unit of time should be the second; the unit of length should be either the metre or a decimal multiple of it; and the unit of mass should be the gram or a decimal multiple of it. Metric systems have evolved since the 1790s, as science and technology have evolved, in providing a single universal measuring system.
Conversions between units in the metric system are defined by their prefixes (for example, 1 kilogram = 1000 grams, 1 milligram = 0.001 grams) and are thus not listed in this article. Exceptions are made if the unit is commonly known by another name (for example, 1 micron = 10 −6 metre).
An input unit can be converted to any number of output units—the outputs are specified as a "combination" by separating unit codes with a space (" ") or a plus ("+"). Using a space as a separator does not work if any of the unit codes contains a space.
A unit of measurement, or unit of measure, is a definite magnitude of a quantity, defined and adopted by convention or by law, that is used as a standard for measurement of the same kind of quantity. [1] Any other quantity of that kind can be expressed as a multiple of the unit of measurement. [2] For example, a length is a physical quantity.