Concept preview

What you will be able to do

1. 01Name the SI base units and common metric prefixes
2. 02Rewrite a prefixed unit as an exponential equivalent
3. 03Convert between metric prefixes by connecting through the base unit

The International System (SI) of metric units builds every quantity from a small set of base units. In Chemistry 11 the ones you need are: length in metres (m), mass in grams (g), time in seconds (s), and amount of substance in moles (mol), together with volume in litres (L) and the tonne (t) for large masses. Strictly the SI base unit of mass is the kilogram, but for this course the gram is treated as the base unit of mass. A base unit is a basic unit of measurement; all other units are either multiples of a base unit or combinations of base units.