Question

Question #1188d

Answer 1

Some measurements are not compatible.

Explanation:

The simple answer is that it wouldn't make sense to mix different types of units. For example, take `cm` and `m`. While they both take on the measurement of length, if I wanted to find the area of `cm` by `m` square, it wouldn't look right to mix the units to get `cmm` therefore we convert both to one or the other. Sometimes conversions make the numbers a lot more nicer to work with as well.

Answer 2

There are many reasons -- such as what your first answer mentioned. Another case is when you would be multiplying a measurement times a coefficient which has units.

Explanation:

An example of the case I mentioned above involves density. Density is mass/volume and is typically found in units of `(kg)/m^3`. If you know the volume of an object in cubic centimeters, or cc, it would be wrong to multiply the density by volume with those units.

Assume your data is a density with units of `"kg"/m^3` and volume of an object in units of cc. First convert the volume units from cc to `m^3`. Then when you multiply the density by the volume, the `m^3` units of the volume will cancel the `m^3` in the denominator of the density, leaving you with kg.

I hope this helps,
Steve