Can someone help me begin on how to solve this problem?
The dipole moment of HI is 0.42D. What is the dipole moment of HI in C⋅m?

Question

Can someone help me begin on how to solve this problem? 
The dipole moment of HI is 0.42D. What is the dipole moment of HI in C⋅m?

matt101 · Answer

D (debyes) and C⋅m (coulomb-metres) are just different units for measuring dipole moments, just like you can use kilometres or miles to measure distance. You just need to perform a conversion:

1 D = 3.33 x 10^(-30) C⋅m

So...0.42 D = 0.42 x 3.33 x 10^(-30) = 1.40 x 10^(-30) C⋅m

anonymous · Answer

ohh... so 1D=3.33x10^(-30) Cm is a conversion?

matt101 · Answer

Yup!

anonymous · Answer

Thank you! That actually helped a lot!