Hi there,

The conversion factor for miles to kilometers is  ⁵/₈. That is, 1 kilometer is  ⁵/₈ of a mile. If you don't want to work with fractions, here is another way you can convert from miles to kilometers or vice versa.

Begin by listing the fist few terms of a special sequence called the Fibonacci sequence:

The first two terms are 1, and then each subsequent term is found by adding the two that come right before it.

Now comes the cool part. To convert from kilometers to miles, take your number (16) and write it as the sum of Fibonbacci numbers from the sequence:

Now add together the two Fibonacci numbers in the sequence that come right before the two you added to get 16:

You could also write

The conversion values you find this way will not always be exact, but are always within 1 kilometer or mile of being right.

Or you can just use the 5/8 conversion factor and multiply by the fraction:

16 kilometers  ⁵/₈ miles per kilometer = 16 ⁵/₈ = 10 miles

Hope this helps,

Leeanne