I’m hopeless with arithmetic. I need to convert pg/ml to ng/dl. That’s picograms per mililiter to nanograms per deciliter. I know it’s all powers of 10, but I’m still a little lost.
I think I multiply picograms by 1000 to get nanograms and multiply ml by 100 to get dl so I think that means if I multiply the pg/ml by 10, I get ng/dl. Is that right?
You have to carry the units through along with the numbers. For each component unit you are starting with, you can substitute the equivalent number of the unit you want to end up with. Then you can multiply all the numbers, and that gives you a conversion factor.
The way we were taught to do it in school is pretty similar to how the OP states it, but we were taught to write down all the steps like this - and then cross out all the stuff that “negates” each other.