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How to Use Google Calculator to Convert Acres, Hectares, Square Miles and Other Units of Area
Growing up in Michigan, I enjoyed living on a scenic five acre lot. That’s a sharp contrast as to what’s available in Pittsburgh, where my wife and I currently live. We’ve been looking at houses and have noticed that the typical lot size is somewhere around 30 feet by 100 feet.
I’ve been wondering how big that yard really is, in units that I grew up with and understand – acres. Google can easily convert between these measurements. To figure it out, all I have to do is type 30 feet x 100 feet in acres into any Google search box.
Google lets me know that I am dealing with nearly .07 acres. Not very much real estate, but then again it is a city lot. In contrast, I can see how the five acres compare with the 3,000 square feet that the Pittsburgh lots allow us by typing 5 acres in square feet into a Google search box.
217,800 sq. feet blows away 3,000 sq. feet!
Google is also capable of converting many other units of area such as:
- Square Miles
- Square [kilo, centi, milli, etc.]meters
- Hectares
- Ares
As an example, we can type in two units that I am not very familiar with, the Are (different from Acre) and the Hectare.
Also, if you want to know how many acres are in a square mile, Google can easily tell you:
Lastly, I always love to push Google’s limits. I was able to find out that there are nearly 2.6 quintillion square micrometers in one square mile. This could top the list of things to do when you’re bored on a Saturday night…
As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below!
How to Use Google to Find the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything
You read that right. If you thought there was a limit on what Google can do, you might want to think again. All you have to do is ask the following question in a Google search box:
What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?
If you are still working on finding an answer to this question, you may not want to read below. I don’t want to ruin it for you.
Here’s the answer to life, the universe, and everything according to Google:
You may be amazed to learn that it only takes Google 0.06 seconds to find out the answer. It originally took about 7.5 million years to find out the answer to this question. It’s amazing how far computers have come.
This is just another example of how much fun the Google engineers like to have while they are busy working on improving their search algorithms.
How to Use Google Calculator to Find Scientific Constants
Since Google was designed by engineers, you can expect to find some geeky tricks up its sleeve. One of these neat tricks is that Google has memorized dozens of physical constants and is ready and willing to show off its memorization skills at your request.
For example, if you type in speed of sound in any Google search box, Google will tell you what the speed of sound is, as shown below:
Not only does it tell you the speed of sound, but it goes one step further and clarifies that this is the speed of sound at sea level, since the speed of sound slows down as the air gets less dense at higher altitudes.
Let’s say you’re just not the meters per second kind of person. You think in MPH (miles per hour). Well, just tell Google and it will take care of the conversion. If you type in speed of sound in mph, Google tells you what the speed of sound is in units that make more sense to you.
If you’re like me, you might think that this is fun in a twisted sort of way. I wanted to stretch the limits of Google’s built-in calculator and decided to type in speed of sound in nanometers per millennium. I knew it would be an insanely high number, but Google is able to figure it out in only 0.09 seconds, as you can see below!
Not only can Google tell you the speed of sound, but it can also remind you of many constants. There are a lot that Google has memorized. You sort of have to experiment. However, more likely than not, Google will tell you the constant that you need to know whether you need it to finish your chemistry homework or just want to satisfy your curiosity.
Google can tell you how many atoms are in a mole (Avogadro’s number).
It also knows the elementary charge of an electron…
And finally the gravitational constant:
So next time you need to know a certain physical constant, just type it into Google’s search box. Google won’t leave you hanging.
Using Google As a Measurement Converter
So you signed up to run that 10K next week, and you want to know what you’ve gotten yourself into. Don’t worry, 10K doesn’t stand for 10,000 miles, it’s only 10 kilometers. But how do you know how many miles that is? Google can help you with that! All you have to do is type the following into a Google search box:
You will end up getting a response automatically from Google’s calculator at the top of the results page telling you that 10 kilometers is equal to about 6.2 miles. Not bad.
If you remember the popular rock song from the mid-90′s entitled “I’m Gonna Be (500 miles)” by The Proclaimers, you may wonder if the lead singer could’ve made a stronger case if he told his honey that he would be willing to walk more than 804 billion nanometers “just to be the man to … fall down at your door.” Check out the music video here.
The possibilities are endless if you want to use Google as a measurement converter. It knows every measurement you know — and then some. Ever wanted to know how big Noah’s ark was? Google knows, and you can to by plugging the cubits into a search box.
If you can’t even begin to fathom how big a fathom is, don’t worry — Google’s got that taken care of for you.
And my personal favorite — if you want to answer the riddle of how many hands are in a foot, don’t worry. Google knows the answer.
Have you ever wanted to know how far 20,000 leagues under the sea really is? I’ll leave that one up to you.
So, rather than memorizing all of the units of measurement below and using a calculator to find out what you need to know, you can just plug them into a Google search box, and have the answer you’re looking for.
- 1 m (meter) = 3.2808 ft = 39.37 in = 1.0936 yd = 6.214×10-4 mile
- 1 km = 0.6214 mile = 3281 ft = 1094 yds
- 1 in (inch) = 25.4 mm = 2.54 cm = 0.0254 m = 0.08333 ft = 0.02778 yd = 1.578×10-5 mile
- 1 ft (foot) = 0.3048 m = 12 in = 0.3333 yd = 1.894×10-4 mile = 30.48 cm = 304.8 mm
- 1 mm = 10-3 m
- 1 cm = 10-2 m = 0.3937 in = 0.0328 ft
- 1 mm = 0.03937 in
- 1 Ã (Angstrom) = 10-10 m
- 1 mile = 1.6093 km = 1,609.3 m = 63,346 in = 5,280 ft = 1,760 yd
- 1 mil (Norway and Sweden) = 10 kilometres
- 1 nm (nautical mile) = 1,852 metres = 1.151 mile = 6076.1 feet
- 1 yd (yard) = 0.9144 m = 36 in = 3 ft = 5.682×10-4 mile
- 1 Furlong = 660 feet = 40 rods = 1/8 mile
- 1 rod = 5.5 yards
- 1 land league = 3 miles
- 1 Fathom = 6 feet = 1.828804 meters
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them below. Thanks for visiting Easy Googler.
Using Google As a Currency Converter
I used to always go over to Yahoo! Finance Currency when I wanted to know the exchange rate of different currencies. I never used a direct link, so I spent a few minutes clicking on the links from the Yahoo! homepage, and then I would finally get to my destination (after taking some time to read the other articles) a few minutes later. If only I knew then what I know now, I could have saved probably an hour or so of my life. I’ll even tell you without requiring you to work for me for an hour. What a deal!
To convert currency in Google, all you have to do is type in the currency you want to go from, to the currency you want to go to. Here is an example:
With that search, you get results along the line of the following, depending of course upon whether the dollar has gotten stronger or weaker since the time of this posting.
As you can see, 10 Euros will buy you approximately $15.50 in United States Dollars. There are other ways to convert currency. You can try the following queries, which all work great:
- canadian money in australian money will show you what 1 Canadian Dollar is equal to in Australian Dollars.
- 100 british pounds in malaysian money will show you that at the time of writing 100 Pounds are equal to ~628 Malaysian Ringgits. Ringgits has a nice ring to it, don’t you think! Sorry, I won’t try that again.
- 1 GPB in USD will show you what 1 Great British Pound is worth in US Dollars. This is helpful if you already know the common abbreviation of currencies. Not sure what those abbreviations are? You can learn them here!
Here’s one of my personal favorites: Let’s say you’re traveling to Brazil and want to compare the price that they pay for their “green” automobile fuel in comparison to what we pay for our regular unleaded gas here in the USA. All you have to do is type the following into a Google search box:
You will get results that are along the line of these:
Thus, if you see a price cheaper than R$1.77, you know that Brazil is getting a better deal on their automobile fuel.