Math Blog Week 5

This week in math I learned two things I definitely don’t want to forget: the first is how to convert units into other units the next is calculating the surface area and volume of pyramids and cones.

One of the simplest ways to convert a unit like 23m into ft is to create an equation that looks like this:  1ft is equal to 0.3048m so we divide 1ft by that since they’re both equal to the same amount. Before multiplying the fractions together it’s important to remember that because we’ll be dividing m by m they cancel each other out and making the equation a bit simpler and give us the answer in the unit we want. So now the equation is and we multiply them together giving us the fraction , to complete the equation all we have to do is divide 23 by 0.3048, punching that into a scientific calculator gives us  which in extended form is a very long repeating decimal that can be simplified to the nearest tenth as 75.5ft so 23m is approximately 75.5ft.

If you know how to calculate the volume of a cylinder or prism then calculating the volume of a pyramid or cone is easy, all you have to do is find the volume of the cylinder or prism and divide it by 3. Finding the surface area requires a lot more work however, for both a cone and a pyramid you would have to find the surface area of the base, if you don’t have one of the values to calculate it you use the Pythagoras Theorem to find the length of the slant, radius or hight. The surface area of a cone is , the surface area of a pyramid is .