Measurement conversion

[dobienut]

Looking to figure out a road measurement but my calculating isn't the greatest. If I build a road 12 ft wide by 500 ft long, how many square meters would the total area be ?

[dripley]

557.4 square meters. are you paving in europe?

[dobienut]

Thanks Dripley...can you show me how to figure that out ?

[dripley]

googled it. dont rember all it said other than 1 square foot = .0929 of a square meter.6000 X .0929 = 557.4.

[MarbleCrusher]

557.4 square meters. are you paving in europe?

Nope looks like hes in Canada, makes sense lol -Jordan-

[dripley]

my oversight. almost to cold to pave anyway. might be up north.

[Guest Paradox]

I'll give this a shot.We all know that area is the amount of units inside a defined area which uses squares as the building blocks of that area. This can be seen easily on a graph paper (grid paper) if you drew a square around 4 blocks. Each block being 1 unit, it is said to have 4 square units, 2 wide x 2 long. In the same instance, you can draw 12ft by 500ft on a graphing paper and you will find 12 x 500 = 6000 squares. You can have fractions of squares as well if the numbers are not whole numbers, so 2.5 x 2.5 would have 6.25 square units. Of course you probably already knew that but I like to start from the beginning of it all then you can pick out the parts you didn't know. The units you pick is critical as the formulas you do to figure things must always use the same unit. You cannot add 50 miles to 50 kilometers and get anything understandable, you would have to convert it to either 50 miles + 31.068 miles or 80.4672 kilometers + 50 kilometers. Both would give you the same distance but one is 81.068 miles and one is 130.4672 kilometers, this shows that the 100 you would have got originally would be meaningless and emphasizes the need to use the same units. You can measure things in whatever units you want but you must always convert them to one unit or the other before calculating anything in order for it to work out. This leads us to the original problem of finding the square meters in 12ft x 500ft. Obviously length x width = area so we have 6000 sq. ft. One thing to note is that 1 meter is the same as 3.28 feet, the same as pi (3.14) with the 2 decimal numbers doubled (easy way to remember). Initially, you might think it is as easy as taking 6000/3.28, which in theory would give you the answer in meters, but it doesn't work that way because 3.28 is a factor of linear (straight line) measurement and we are trying to find square measurement. If you were to draw a square and mark both sides as being 3.28 feet, then you have a square meter inside that square. 3.28 x 3.28 = 10.7584 sq. ft. That means that 1 sq. m. is equal to 10.7584 sq . ft. If you took 10.7584/3.28, you get 3.28, which as you can see, is not a "1" as it should be because that was a square meter that we drew, so doing it that way does not work. The secret is that we are using "squared" units. This means you must use the logic of squared terms. In other words, 10.7584 sq. ft. being 1 sq. m., is the conversion factor you can divide by. The 6000 sq. ft. you got originally can be divided by 10.7584 and you'll get 557.7 sq. m., the answer to your question. Alternatively, you can use multiplication rather than division by using the inverse of 10.7584, which is the same as taking 1 / 10.7584, which gives you 0.09295. Multiply 0.09295 by 6000 and you get the same 557.7 sq. m. This is the method Dripley found through google. Alternative (2) is to simply convert the original measurements to meters. As I said previously 1 meter is 3.28 ft. By taking the feet measurements and dividing them by 3.28, you get the measurements in meters. These are linear measurements (not square yet) so it works out. 12/3.28=3.6585m and 500/3.28=152.439m. Then it is the same principal of length x width and since you are already in meters, the answer is in square meters. 3.6585m. x 152.439m. = 557.7 sq. m.Sorry again for being elementary.

[dripley]

missed it by .3 of a meter. call the asphalt plant we are gonna be short. not trying to make fun of you. i cant explain things near as eloquent as you did. i deal with aq yds and cubic yards alot. never have to convert them though. the expanation might have been more of what dobienut was looking for.

[Guest Paradox]

I don't know what eloquent means so you already got me beat All I did was type more though, and used more decimal places. The real answer with everything drawn out to full decimal spectrum is 557.7037478 Wouldn't believe I failed geometry and algebra now would you.

[dripley]

I don't know what eloquent means so you already got me beat All I did was type more though, and used more decimal places. The real answer with everything drawn out to full decimal spectrum is 557.7037478 Wouldn't believe I failed geometry and algebra now would you.

elpquent, having or excesising the power of fluent and appropriate speach. googled that one too. when i looked up the square meter thingy, there were definatley alot more numbers after the decimal point than i cared to type. kinda gave the clff notes version. i passed both geometry and algebra but did not think i would ever need it. then i became a framing carpenter and all that geometry would have come in handy. had to learn alot of it over again.