How many grams are in 74.0 mg?

1 Answer
Aug 28, 2016

"mg" stands for milligram.

  • "m" is the prefix "milli", which means 10^(-3), a number less than 1.
  • "1 mg" is therefore literally smaller than "1 g".

So, there are 10^(-3) "g" in "1 mg", or 10^3 "mg" in "1 g". This makes sense because you need more of something small to equal something larger.

Due to the equivalences given above, we can use one of them as a conversion factor.

74.0 cancel("mg") xx "1 g"/(10^3 cancel("mg"))

= 74.0 cancel("mg") xx (10^(-3) "g")/(1 cancel("mg"))

= color(blue)("0.074 g")

You don't have to do it both ways, but both are provided so you can choose.