5.3 Numbers as Units

For units, numbers are just another kind of unit. They can appear as many times as you like and in any order in a unit expression. For example, to find the volume of a box that is 2 ft by 3 ft by 12 ft in steres, you could do the following:

You have: 2 ft 3 ft 12 ft
You want: stere
        * 2.038813
        / 0.49048148

You have: $ 5 / yard
You want: cents / inch
        * 13.888889
        / 0.072

And the second example shows how the dollar sign in the units conversion can precede the five. Be careful: units will interpret ‘$5’ with no space as equivalent to ‘dollar^5’.