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Physics help ?

This may be a silly q but why does a wire of cross-sectional area 1.5mm^2 equal 1.5x10^-6 m^2

could someone pls explain why this is the case, it would be very much appreciated :smile:
I could be wrong but is it to do with the cross sectional area being in square mm, so 1.5mm is equal to 0.0000015 square mm
Original post by Orss_
This may be a silly q but why does a wire of cross-sectional area 1.5mm^2 equal 1.5x10^-6 m^2

could someone pls explain why this is the case, it would be very much appreciated :smile:

The way I think about it is to think about a 1mx1m square drawn on a (large) piece of graph paper covered in 1mmx1mm squares
the large square has 1000 small squares in the x direction and 1000 small squares in the y direction
the area of the large square is 1000 multiplied by 1000 i.e. 1 million small squares
or the area of each small 1mmx1mm square is 1.0 E-6 m2
Reply 3
Avatar for Mrdesi
Mrdesi
13
Yea thats correct
Original post by Orss_
This may be a silly q but why does a wire of cross-sectional area 1.5mm^2 equal 1.5x10^-6 m^2

could someone pls explain why this is the case, it would be very much appreciated :smile:

1mm x 1mm = 1mm21 mm^2. The notation doesn't make it clear, but it's 1(mm)2=1(10−3m)2=10−6m21 (mm)^2 = 1 (10^{-3}m)^2 = 10^{-6}m^2

Therefore, 1.5mm2=1.5∗10−6m21.5{mm}^2=1.5*10^{-6}m^2
Why? This is somewhat over-complicating the issue.

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