UnitConverter

The UnitConverter has many interfaces: some IRC channels have a .conv, boobsthebot on AIM has the “conv” command, uc.encryptio.com is a more direct interface, and there’s a mini bookmarklet which lets you pop up a UnitConverter box on any page you’re on—drag it to your bookmarks bar: UnitConverter. All of the interfaces act identically.

The easiest way to learn how the UnitConverter works is through examples. (You can even follow along by clicking on the bookmarklet above to pop open an interface!)

Basic Usage

It allows basic calculations:

1+1
⇒ 2
2*(4+5)
⇒ 18

Basic conversions:

meters to feet
    ⇒ 3.28083989501312 feet
20 c to f
    ⇒ 68 fahrenheit
2 radians in degrees
    ⇒ 114.591559026165 degrees

Complex conversions (this one uses ISO 4217 currency codes):

2.2 usd per gallon into sek per liter
⇒ 3.58121330379377 sek per liter

Complex asymmetric conversions:

225 miles at 50 miles per hour in days
⇒ 0.1875 days
40 gigs at 35kb/s in hr
⇒ 332.88126984127 hr

You can spell out numbers:

fifty miles in kilometers
⇒ 80.4672 kilometers

You can mix calculations and conversions:

5m + (40 tons at 20kg/sec) in min
⇒ 35.2394913333333 min

You can also use complicated calculations to avoid converting many things many times:

(720 x 480 * 3byte * 24hz) for 1h+50min > gb
⇒ 152.950286865234 gb

Most units are supported, even odd ones:

furlong / hand
⇒ 1980

The UnitConverter supports most “short names” of units, and will pick the one that makes sense:

20m to s
⇒ 1200 s
20m to ft
⇒ 65.6167979002625 ft

You could even spell out every last bit and let the UnitConverter handle the rest:

four gigabytes at one hundred sixty five kilobytes per second in hours
⇒ 7.06111784511785 hours

If you don’t tell the UnitConverter what to convert something into, it will show you the metric breakdown.

volt * amp
⇒ 1 * watts
acre
⇒ 4046.8564224 * meters^2

If you decide afterwards that you want it in another form, just add what you want to convert to at the end of the result:

4046.8564224 * meters^2 > sq ft
⇒ 43560 sq ft

When a conversion is ambiguous, it will show you a list of possibilities:

m
⇒ 1 * meters, 60 * seconds

You can still use this output and convert it into something else - it won’t show you conversions that don’t work.

1 * meters, 60 * seconds into hours
⇒ 0.0166666666666667 hours

Of course, you can use that comma trick yourself for some fancy calculations:

(1, 2, 3) * 5
⇒ 5, 10, 15

Or even conversions:

30 kilometers at (55, 65, 80) mph in hours
⇒ 0.338929741220364 hours, 0.286786704109539 hours, 0.233014197089 hours

The ambiguity can quickly get out of hand if you’re not careful.

m*s
⇒ 1 * meters * seconds, 0.001 * siemens * meters, 60 * seconds^2, 0.06 * farads

Just remember that if this happens, all you have to do is be more specific.

meter*siemen
⇒ 1 * siemens * meters

Complex Usage

If needed, you can explicitly attach a type to a value.

second
    ⇒ 4.84813681109536e-06 * radians, 1 * seconds
second :: angle
    ⇒ 4.84813681109536e-06 * radians
second :: time
    ⇒ 1 * seconds

You can find the atomic mass of any element.

Au>g/mol
⇒ 196.966569 g/mol

Or any compound (here, water and glucose.)

H*2 + O > g/mol
⇒ 18.01528 g/mol
C*6 + H*12 + O*6 > g/mol
⇒ 180.15588 g/mol

Using these atomic masses, you can find the number of moles perl ml in a dose of 10 mg/ml of glucose:

10 mg/ml of C*6+H*12+O*6 into mmol/ml
⇒ 748.05164828455 mmol/ml

You can take a measure of flow and figure out how long it will take for some volume to fill:

8ft x 4ft x 4ft at 50 gal/sec in seconds
⇒ 19.1501298701299 sec

Elements that have a known density are also in the system.

Au > g/cc
⇒ 19.282 g/cc

So you could take any volume of an element and figure out its mass.

50 cc of gold in lbs
⇒ 2.12547666972441 lbs

You can take a wavelength and convert it to a frequency using the speed of light as a constant (in this case, blue light.)

c/450nm>tHz
⇒ 666.205462222222 tHz