# convert from one time scale to another

i would like to exactly to convert given scale of time into years and month,suppose we have time $T = 2.35$ years clearly it is more then $2$ year,but what about $0.35$?in which scale it is given? In generally if it is related to year,then we should multiply it by one year or $12$ months to get in term of month what fraction it represent, but could not it given in days?then what is possible scale for it? I need such kind of terms because maybe in GRE exam there could be such kind of transformation necessary,so please help me.

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Years and months and days are all on the same scale, but using it is hazardous due to leap years and other anomalies. – Eric Tressler Jul 31 '13 at 16:02

Does this help?

\begin{align} 2.35 \;\text{years} &= 2 \;\text{years} + 0.35 \;\text{years}\\ &= 2 \;\text{years} + 0.35 \frac{12 \;\text{months}}{1 \;\text{year}}\;\text{years}\\ &= 2 \;\text{years} + 4.2 \;\text{months}\\ &= 2 \;\text{years} + 4 \;\text{months} + 0.2 \frac{30 \;\text{days}}{1 \;\text{month}} \;\text{months}\\ &= 2 \;\text{years} + 4 \;\text{months} + 6 \;\text{days} \end{align}

Generally, when you write something like 22.35 years, the whole number is given in terms of the specified unit. In other words, the 0.35 is also measuring the amount in terms of years (I think that was part of your question.)

I can see why this might be confusing, though. We write time as hours:minutes, rather than hours:fraction-of-hours.

If you're ever in doubt about something like this on an exam, you can usually ask a prof. In any case, as long as you are very clear about what you're doing in your answer, and you provide steps that the markers can easily follow, you should be fine.

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it is not about exam,in which prof can help,i mean it is not in classroom,but thanks very much,it is what i wanted – dato datuashvili Jul 31 '13 at 16:20
"months" are not a fixed unit, though; they vary obviously by month, and also by year. – Eric Tressler Jul 31 '13 at 16:20