Basic Mathematics for College Students

Define metric units of mass.

The massof an object is a measure of the amount of material in the object. When an
object is moved about in space, its mass does not change. One basic unit of mass in the
metric system is the gram (g). A gram is defined to be the mass of water contained in
a cube having sides 1 centimeter long. (See the figure below.)

Other units of mass are created by adding prefixes to the front of the basic unit,
gram.

Metric Units of Mass

1g

1 cubic

centimeter

of water

5

5.4 Metric Units of Measurement 461

every 100 centimeters and 1 kilometer for every 1,000 meters, we multiply by
and.

Multiply the fractions.

Divide 3.2 by 1,000 and 100 by moving

 0.000032 km the decimal point 5 places to the left.



3.2

100 1,000

km

Remove the common units of centimeters

3.2 cm and meters. The units of km remain.

3.2 cm

1



1 m

100 cm



1 km

1,000 m

1 km

1,000 m^

1 m

100 cm

Prefix kilo- hecto- deka- deci- centi- milli-

gram gram gram gram gram gram gram

Meaning 1,000 100 10 1 or 0.1 or 0.01 or 0.001

grams grams grams gram of a gram of a gram of a gram

Abbreviation kg hg dag g dg cg mg

1

1,000

1

100

1

10

The most often used metric units of mass are kilograms, grams, and milligrams.
Some examples are shown below.

A certain vitamin tablet contains

450 milligrams of calcium.

A raisin weighs

about 1 gram.

An average bowling ball weighs

about 6 kilograms.

VitaminC