Page 63 - Calculating Agriculture Cover 20191124 STUDENT - A

CH 5] Calculating Agriculture 5-1

CHAPTER 5

Measurements

Objectives

Mastering the material in this chapter and you will be able to:
 Convert measurements to larger or smaller units.
 Add, subtract, multiply, and divide English and metric measurements.
 Calculate the perimeters and areas for a square, rectangle, triangle, and circle.
 Determine the volume of three dimensional objects.
 Convert English measurements to metric measurements and vice versa.

All mathematics deals with measurements of some kind. The first chapters of this text dealt
with a subset of measurement: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division; working with
whole numbers and fractional parts of numbers; percents as an element and/or ratio of numbers,
fractions which are also an element and/or ratio of a number, and decimals. All of these are used
in a defined manner to solve a problem, to follow an algorithm. The algorithm is a process or set
of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations. 5
This chapter focuses on Weights and Measures that are common through out life, whether it is
your own weight or purchasing a bunch of bananas with the price given per pound. Weights and
measures create a necessary occupation of human industry from the distribution and security of
property, real or tangible, to trade transactions. Consider when you fill up your gas tank at the
pump, you are dealing with gallons, a volume that has weight being metered and measured to
yield the price you will pay for the transaction.
Weights and measures are involved in trade and commerce, for the husbandman (farmer and
rancher) raising cattle or poultry for the market or producing fluid milk and grain for the breakfast
table. The ingenuity of the craftsman, chemist, astronomer and engineer, navigation for the
mariner and pilot, soldier in battle, and the exchanges for peace all deal with weights and
measures for their applicable area of concern. Mastery of measurements and their associated
algorithms become riveted to memory by the habitual application of them throughout life.
The terms for weights and measures are classified as either English or metric, their
measurements are different yet the algorithm employed to resolve a mathematical problem
are EXACTLY the same for each. The student of mathematics need only ensure that the
terms in their problem are used consistently and not mixed. That is given the problem
“determine the weight of a truck when its cargo weighs 18,000 kilos and the truck, fully
fueled weights 9,000 pounds”, we note that it contains mixed terms, kilos and pounds. As
simple as this addition would be, the terms must be uniform, either all kilos or all pounds,
either all metric or all English, to determine the loaded weight of the truck. Once the terms
are equivalent the algorithm, calculation is easily resolved.
Let us also ask, why is the total weight of the truck necessary to be known? The answer
lies in our road construction and to insure a longer life of the road requires that the truck
loads not exceed the carrying weight and capacity of the their trailer load which when
exceeded will damage the road. Current truck size and weight standards are a blend of

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