Pounds to short tons
One pound is 0.0005 short tons, and this shows the working rather than just the answer. Nothing you type here leaves your browser — it is worked out on your own device, so there is nothing to send and nothing to log.
The factor
One pound is 0.0005 short tons. That is the whole of the conversion: multiply by it, and nothing else happens.
What this page will not claim
It will not call this conversion exact. The factor is right to every figure shown, but at least one of these two units is not defined exactly in terms of the other, so there is a limit to how far the decimals mean anything.
The pound is exactly 0.45359237 kg, and has been since 1 July 1959.
The short ton is 2,000 pounds. The American ton.
There is no shorter version
The factor is short enough to use as it stands, so nobody carries a rounded one and there is nothing to get wrong.
Going the other way
The reverse is not this sum backwards in your head. It is a different factor, 2,000, and dividing by one is not the same as multiplying by a rounded version of the other.
That one is short enough to write down exactly, which is why the conversion feels easier in this direction than the other.
How many of those decimals mean anything
The box above will give you ten decimal places because it can. Whether they mean anything is decided by your measurement, not by the arithmetic.
If you measured to the nearest pound, your figure is already uncertain by half of one — so the answer is uncertain by about 0.00025 short tons, and every digit past that is decoration. Quoting 0.00061728 when you measured with a tape is claiming a precision the tape never had.
Where these two sit
Pounds and short tons both measure mass, which is why they can be converted at all. A conversion between families — a length into a weight — is not a conversion, it is a question with a missing quantity in it.
The unit converter pairs pounds with kilograms rather than with short tons, because that is the conversion people ask for most. This page exists because a good many ask for this one instead.
Other conversions from pounds
kilograms · grams · ounces · stone · tonnes · milligrams