PHYSICS AND MEASUREMENTS

Lecture 1

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 What is Physics?

• Physics is the study of the basic components of the

universe and their interactions.
• Physics is the study of the interaction between matter
and energy.
• Physics quantifies the laws of science.
• Theories of physics have to be verified by the
experimental measurements.
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 Chapter 1 Measurement
• To be quantitative in Physics requires measurements
• How tall is Yao Ming? How about his weight?
– Height: 2.29 m (7 ft 6 in)
– Weight: 141 kg (310 lb)

• Number + Unit

– “thickness is 10.” has no physical meaning

– Both numbers and units necessary for any meaningful physical quantities

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 Type Quantities
• Many things can be measured: distance, speed, energy, time,
force ……
• These are related to one another: speed = distance / time
• Choose three basic quantities (DIMENSIONS):
– LENGTH
– MASS
– TIME
• Define other units in terms of these.

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 SI Unit for 3 Basic Quantities
• Many possible choices for units of Length, Mass, Time (e.g.
Yao is 2.29 m or 7 ft 6 in)
• In 1960, standards bodies control and define Système
Internationale (SI) unit as,

– LENGTH: Meter
– MASS: Kilogram
– TIME: Second

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 Fundamental Quantities and SI Units
Length meter m
Mass kilogram kg
Time second s
Electric Current ampere A
Thermodynamic Temperature Kelvin K
Luminous Intensity candela cd
Amount of Substance mole mol

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 SI Length Unit: Meter
• French Revolution Definition, 1792
• 1 Meter = XY/10,000,000
• 1 Meter = about 3.28 ft
• 1 km = 1000 m, 1 cm = 1/100 m, 1 mm =
1/1000 m
• 1983 Definition of 1 Meter: the distance
traveled by light in vacuum during a time
of 1/299,792,458 second.

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 SI Time Unit: Second

• 1 Second is defined in terms of an “atomic clock”– time taken

for 9,192,631,770 oscillations of the light emitted by a 133Cs
atom.
• Defining units precisely is a science (important, for example, for
GPS):
– This clock will neither gain nor lose a second in 20 million years.
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 SI Mass Unit: Kilogram
• 1 Kilogram – the mass of a specific platinum-
iridium alloy (143 year-old) kept at International
Bureau of Weights and Measures near Paris.
Copies are kept in many other countries.
– Yao Ming is 141 kg, equivalent to weight of 141 pieces
of the alloy cylinder.
• The kilogram is now defined in terms of the Planck
constant, h

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Length, Mass, Time

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 Prefixes for SI Units
 3,000 m = 3 x 1,000 m 10x Prefix Symbol
x=18 exa E
= 3 x 103 m = 3 km
15 peta P
 1,000,000,000 = 109 = 1G
12 tera T
 1,000,000 = 106 = 1M
9 giga G
 1,000 = 103 = 1k 6 mega M
3 kilo k
 141 kg = ? g 2 hecto h
 1 GB = ? Byte = ? MB 1 deca da

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 Prefixes for SI Units
10x Prefix Symbol  0.003 s = 3  0.001 s
x=-1 deci d = 3 x 10-3 s = 3 ms
-2 centi c  0.01 = 10-2 = centi
-3 milli m  0.001 = 10-3 = milli
-6 micro µ  0.000 001 = 10-6 = micro
-9 nano n  0.000 000 001 = 10-9 = nano
-12 pico p  0.000 000 000 001 = 10-12 = pico = p
-15 femto f
-18 atto a  1 nm = ? m = ? cm
 3 cm = ? m = ? mm
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 Scientific Notation
All Physics quantities should be written as scientific notation,
which employs powers of 10.

The Order of magnitude of a number is the power of ten

when the number is expressed in scientific notation

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 Example

• Determine the order of magnitude of the

following numbers:
(a) A=2.3×104
(b) B=7.8×105

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 Significant Figures
• All measurements are inaccurate
–Precision of measuring device
–Human error
–Faulty technique

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 Significant Figures
• Measurements need to convey precision
• Must include degree of uncertainty
–This is caused by two factors, the limitation of the
measuring instrument (systematic error) and the skill
of the experimenter making the measurements
(random error)

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Significant Figures

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 Significant Figures

1. Significant figures in a measurement include

– all of the digits that are known precisely
– plus one last digit that is estimated.

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 Significant Figures

2. Non-zero digits are always significant.

103.230002

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 Significant Figures

3. All final zeros after the decimal point are

significant.
12.740
0.0420

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 Significant Figures

4. Zeros between two other significant

digits are always significant.
10.0
2004
6.000
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 Significant Figures

5. Zeros used only for spacing the decimal

point are not significant.
100
0.00000233

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• Always put a 0 in front of a decimal point
–0.247 
–0.0042 
–.873 

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 Significant Figures

1) 400 2) 200.0

3) 0.0001 4) 218

5) 320 6) 0.00530

7) 22 568 8) 4755.50

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 Significant Figures

6. If you add or subtract, the answer is rounded

to the same number of decimal places as the
measurement with the least number of
decimal places.

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Calculations

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Calculations

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 Significant Figures

7. If you multiply or divide two numbers, the

answer is rounded off to the number of
significant figures in the least precise term
used in the calculation (i.e. the number with
the fewest sig figs).

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Calculations

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Calculations

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 Derived Quantities and Units
• Multiply and divide units just like numbers
• Derived quantities: area, speed, volume, density ……
– Area = Length x Length SI unit for area = m2
– Volume = Length x Length x Length SI unit for volume = m3
– Speed = Length / time SI unit for speed = m/s
– Density = Mass / Volume SI unit for density = kg/m3

• In 2008 Olympic Game, Usain Bolt sets world record at 9.69 s

in Men’s 100 m Final. What is his average speed ?
100 m 100 m
speed     10.32 m/s
9.69 s 9.69 s
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 Other Unit System
• U.S. customary system: foot, slug, second
• Cgs system: cm, gram, second
• We will use SI units in this course, but it is useful to
know conversions between systems.
– 1 mile = 1609 m = 1.609 km 1 ft = 0.3048 m = 30.48 cm
– 1 m = 39.37 in. = 3.281 ft 1 in. = 0.0254 m = 2.54 cm
– 1 lb = 0.453592 kg 1 oz = 28.35 g 1 slug = 14.59 kg
– 1 day = 24 hours = 24 * 60 minutes = 24 * 60 * 60 seconds

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 Unit Conversion
• Example: Is he speeding ?
– On the garden state parkway of New Jersey, a car is traveling at a speed of 38.0 m/s. Is the driver
exceeding the speed limit?
– Since the speed limit is in miles/hour (mph), we need to convert the units of m/s to mph. Take it in
two steps.
– Step 1: Convert m to miles. Since 1 mile = 1609 m, we have two possible conversion factors, 1
mile/1609 m = 6.215x10-4 mile/m, or 1609 m/1 mile = 1609 m/mile. What are the units of these
conversion factors?
– Since we want to convert m to mile, we want the m units to cancel => multiply by first factor:
 m   1mile  38.0 mile
 38.0     2.36 10-2 mile/s
 s   1609 m  1609 s
– Step 2: Convert s to hours. Since 1 hr = 3600 s, again we could have 1 hr/3600 s = 2.778x10-4 hr/s, or
3600 s/hr.
– Since we want to convert s to hr, we want the s units to cancel =>
mile 3600 s
38.0 m/s  2.36 10-2   85.0 mile/hr = 85.0 mph
s hr
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• A solid piece of lead has a mass of 23.94 g
and a volume of 2.10 cm3. From these data,
calculate the density of lead in SI units
(kilograms per cubic meter).

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• A rectangular building lot has a width of
75.0 ft and a length of 125 ft. Determine
the area of this lot in square meters.

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• A pyramid has a height of 481 ft, and its base
covers an area of 13.0 acres. The volume of a
pyramid is given by the expression V = 1/3(Bh),
where B is the area of the base and h is the height.
Find the volume of this pyramid in cubic meters. (1
acre = 43 560 ft2)

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 Dimensions, Units and Equations
• Quantities have dimensions:
–Length – L, Mass – M, and Time - T
• Quantities have units: Length – m, Mass – kg, Time – s
• To refer to the dimension of a quantity, use square
brackets, e.g. [F] means dimensions of force.
Quantity Area Volume Speed Acceleration
Dimension [A] = L2 [V] = L3 [v] = L/T [a] = L/T2
SI Units m2 m3 m/s m/s2

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 Dimensional Analysis
• Necessary either to derive a math expression, or equation or to check
its correctness.
• Quantities can be added/subtracted only if they have the same
dimensions.
• The terms of both sides of an equation must have the same
dimensions.
– a, b, and c have units of meters, s = a, what is [s] ?
– a, b, and c have units of meters, s = a + b, what is [s] ?
– a, b, and c have units of meters, s = (2a + b)b, what is [s] ?
– a, b, and c have units of meters, s = (a + b)3/c, what is [s] ?
– a, b, and c have units of meters, s = (3a + 4b)1/2/9c2, what is [s] ?
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 Summary
• The three fundamental physical dimensions of mechanics are length,
mass and time, which in the SI system have the units meter (m),
kilogram (kg), and second (s), respectively
• The method of dimensional analysis is very powerful in solving physics
problems.
• Units in physics equations must always be consistent. Converting units
is a matter of multiplying the given quantity by a fraction, with one
unit in the numerator and its equivalent in the other units in the
denominator, arranged so the unwanted units in the given quantity
are cancelled out in favor of the desired units.

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