I Need A Formula That Will Convert from Metric to Imperial (And Back)...

Hi All,

I am currently taking a Statistics course at a university in Canada.

As part of our assignment the Prof. has gathered raw data from the class that we are to process using Excel. Because of the diverse origins and ages of some members of the class the responses are in both Imperial and Metric. The older class members tend to use Imperial, and those younger or foreign born, tend to use Metric.

My Prof. thinks he is John Houseman and as a result he can be and is very exacting. If I can find a formula that converts the two measurement systems, I think I would be in a much better position. Here's the problem:

Logically, the numeric values of the two systems are not equal. For example, some people have given a value of 136 which means that it is in centmetres. If this response was in inches, this would mean that the person is 10' 4', which would be physically impossible!

On the other hand, a response of 62, which would imply that it is in inches. If the response stood for 62 centimetres, then the person would be just over 2', which would also be physically rare.

I can only assume that when one of you kind folk show me how to do the conversion that I can also apply the same principles to converting lbs. to Kgs...

I know that anything over 80 as a response has to be in centimetres because that would mean the person would have to be 6'10'' or taller. However, on the other side of the coin, if a response is less than 130 it also has to be in metric, because that would mean the person would have to be 4'3'' or shorter. This is my confusion...

The assignment instructions ask the people to identify their heights in inches, (well feet actually), so that is the height measurement I would like to use when manipulating the data. How do I do this? What would I have to do to convert lbs. to Kgs?

Any insights would be appreciated.

Mr. Smith

Hi!

If you are lucky enough to have all of the responses as a single number (whether inches or centimetres) then it shouldn't be too difficult. Leave aside the ft. ins. for the moment!

If you read a value in A1 you know if it exceeds 80 that it is centimetres and if it is less than 130 it has to be inches (your values: your classmates!) I take it, therefore, that you have no values between 80 and 130 to process.

=if(A1<=80,A1,A1/2.540) will preserve inches for values under 80 and convert to inches for other values. I use 2.540 cm to the inch. You could use the CONVERT function in Excel if you want to, but I doubt you would need even my level of accuracy when dealing with people's estimates of their heights!

Kg and lb is not so simple. Heights tend to fall in a narrow range. Weights don't. It is unusual to find someone in a group twice the height of someone else. Twice the weight...

If you have evidence from your numbers and your eyes that you can draw a similar boundary for weights as you did for heights, the same technique will work.
Biggest lesson of all is: define your units.

Alf