Welcome to Chemistry! So about this time you're probably wondering what you have got yourself into taking this class! Well, as long as you stick to the process oriented nature of problem solving you will be fine! Chemistry is very logical and based in mathematical relationships between different substances. So having a firm foundation in metric units and their equivalents is essential. Most of the problems we solve in chemistry involve the conversion of units using dimensional analysis (aka: the factor-label method) & conversion factors. Basically a conversion factor tells you an equivalent value that relates two different units.For example 1 foot = 12 inches. This can also be written as 1 foot/12 inches or 12 inches/1 foot. However, these are English units (obsolete!) and in Chemistry we primarily use the METRIC system which combines prefixes with an SI base unit. As long as you understand how to use dimensional analysis you can solve nearly any type of mathematical problem! Watch the videos here others on YouTube.com if you need additional explanations! | |