PHYSICS FOR ENGINEERS (Calculus based)

Module 1: Introduction to physics, Unit measurement, unit conversion & significant figures
Objectives:

• Define and discuss Physics

• Identify the different fields of physics
• Discuss the rules for determining the numbers of significant figures
• Work a couple of problems illustrating how to apply the principles of physics to practical problems

Readings:

WHAT IS PHYSICS?
Physics is the most fundamental of the sciences. Its goal is to learn how the Universe works at the most
fundamental level—and to discover the basic laws by which it operates. Theoretical physics concentrates
on developing the theory and mathematics of these laws, while applied physics focuses attention on the
application of the principles of physics to practical problems. Experimental physics lies at the intersection
of physics and engineering; experimental physicists have the theoretical knowledge of theoretical physicists,
and they know how to build and work with scientific equipment.

The fields of cross-disciplinary physics combine physics with other sciences. These include astrophysics
(physics of astronomy), geophysics (physics of geology), biophysics (physics of biology), chemical physics
(physics of chemistry), and mathematical physics (mathematical theories related to physics)
The major fields of physics are:

• Classical mechanics is the study the motion of bodies according to Newton’s laws of motion, and is the subject
of this course.
• Electricity and magnetism are two closely related phenomena that are together considered a single field of
physics.
• Quantum mechanics describes the peculiar motion of very small bodies (atomic sizes and smaller).
• Optics is the study of light.
• Acoustics is the study of sound.
• Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics are closely related fields that study the nature of heat.
• Solid-state physics is the study of solids—most often crystalline metals.
• Plasma physics is the study of plasmas (ionized gases).
• Atomic, nuclear, and particle physics study of the atom, the atomic nucleus, and the particles that make up the
atom.
• Relativity includes Albert Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity. Special relativity describes the
motion of bodies moving at very high speeds (near the speed of light), while general relativity is Einstein’s
theory of gravity.

The fields of cross-disciplinary physics combine physics with other sciences. These include astrophysics
(physics of astronomy), geophysics (physics of geology), biophysics (physics of biology), chemical physics
(physics of chemistry), and mathematical physics (mathematical theories related to physics)

Besides acquiring a knowledge of physics for its own sake, the study of physics will give you a broad
technical background and set of problem-solving skills that you can apply to wide variety of other fields. Some
students of physics go on to study more advanced physics, while others find ways to apply their knowledge
of physics to such diverse subjects as mathematics, engineering, biology, medicine, and finance.

Another benefit of learning physics is that, unlike courses in technology, everything you learn in this
course will never be obsolete. Although theories at the cutting edge of physics research may change, the
basic physics you’ll learn in these courses will not. You will be able to use what you learn in this course
throughout your life.

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Deductive Logic
Solving physics problems makes extensive use of deductive logic. One begins with a set of known facts (given
in the problem) and a set of relevant equations and definitions (which you select, based on the problem). Using
logic and mathematics, you then deduce the conclusion (the solution to the problem).

As a simple example, suppose you are given that a body travels 700 meters in 10 seconds, and are asked to
find its average speed. You must search your knowledge of physics to decide what additional facts are needed
to solve this problem. In this case, you decide to use the definition of “average speed”: the total distance
divided by the total time. Putting the given information together with this definition, you find the solution to
be 700 meters divided by 10 seconds, or 70 meter per second

If you enjoy solving logic problems, cryptograms, and similar puzzles, then you’ll enjoy solving physics
problems. Solving physics problems is the primary skill you’ll be developing in this course. Professional
physicists solve similar types of problems — often more complex problems. They also do experiments to try
to deduce the correct laws of Nature. In this course we’ll present some of the laws of Nature that have been
deduced so far, along with some of the important results and consequences of those laws.

I UNITS
The phenomena of Nature have been found to obey certain physical laws; one of the primary goals of
physics research is to discover those laws. It has been known for several centuries that the laws of physics are
appropriately expressed in the language of mathematics, so physics and mathematics have enjoyed a close
connection for quite a long time.
In order to connect the physical world to the mathematical world, we need to make measurements of the
real world. In making a measurement, we compare a physical quantity with some agreed-upon standard, and
determine how many such standard units are present. For example, we have a precise definition of a unit of
length called a mile, and have determined that there are about 92,000,000 such miles between the Earth and
the Sun.
It is important that we have very precise definitions of physical units—not only for scientific use, but
also for trade and commerce. In practice, we define a few base units, and derive other units from combinations
of those base units. For example, if we define units for length and time, then we can define a unit for speed as
the length divided by time (e.g. miles/hour).
How many base units do we need to define? There is no magic number; in fact it is possible to define
a system of units using only one base unit (and this is in fact done for so-called natural units). For most
systems of units, it is convenient to define base units for length, mass, and time; a base electrical unit may
also be defined, along with a few lesser-used base units.

I.1 Systems of Units

Several different systems of units are in common use. For everyday civil use, most of the world uses
metric units. The United Kingdom uses both metric units and an imperial system. Here in the United States, U.S.
customary units are most common for everyday use.
There are actually several “metric” systems in use. They can be broadly grouped into two categories:
those that use the meter, kilogram, and second as base units(MKS systems), and those that use the centimeter,
gram, and second as base units (CGS systems). There is only one MKS system, called SI units. We will mostly
use SI units in this course, but we will use other systems from time to time so that you get some experience
with using them.

I.2 SI Units
SI units (which stands for Syst `eme International d’unit´es) are based on the meter as the base unit of
length, the kilogram as the base unit of mass, and the second as the base unit of time. SI units also define four
other base units (the ampere, kelvin, candela, and mole, to be described later). Any physical quantity that can be
measured can be expressed in terms of these seven base units or some combination of them.
SI units were originally based mostly on the properties of the Earth and of water. Under the original
definitions:
• The meter was defined to be one ten-millionth the distance from the equator to the North Pole, along a
line of longitude passing through Paris.
• The kilogram was defined as the mass of 0.001 m3 of water.

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• The second was defined as 1/86,400 the length of a day (one rotation of the Earth).
• The definition of the ampere is related to electrical properties, ultimately relating to the meter, kilogram, and
second.
• The kelvin was defined in terms of the thermodynamic properties of water, as well as absolute zero.
• The candela was defined by the luminous properties of molten tungsten and the behavior of the human eye.
• The mole was defined by the density of the carbon-12 nucleus.

Length (meter)
The SI base unit of length, the meter (m), has been re-defined more times than any other unit, due to the need
for increasing accuracy. Originally (1793) the meter was defined to be 1/10,000,000 the distance from the
North Pole to the equator, along a line going through Paris. Then, in 1889, the meter was re-defined to be the
distance between two lines engraved on a prototype meter bar kept in Paris. Then in 1960 it was re-defined
again: the meter was defined as the distance of 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red emission line in
the krypton-86 atomic spectrum. Still more stringent accuracy requirements led to the current definition
of the meter, which was implemented in 1983: the meter is now defined to be the distance light in vacuum
travels in 1/299,792,458 second. Because of this definition, the speed of light is now exactly 299,792,458
m/s.

U.S. Customary units are legally defined in terms of metric equivalents. For length, the foot (ft) is defined
to be exactly 0.3048 meter

Mass (Kilogranm)
Originally the kilogram (kg) was defined to be the mass of 1 liter (0.001 m3) of water. The need for more
accuracy required the kilogram to be re-defined to be the mass of a standard mass called the International
Prototype Kilogram which is kept in a vault at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) in Paris.
Each country was given its own copy of the IPK to use as its own national standard.

In 2019, the kilogram was re-defined (somewhat indirectly) by defining Planck’s constant (used in quantum
mechanics) to be exactly equal to h = 6.62607015 10-34 kg m2 /s. Since the meter and second are given precise
experimental definitions, fixing the value of h has the effect of defining the value for the kilogram.

Another common metric (but non-SI) unit of mass is the metric ton, which is 1000 kg (a little over 1 short ton).
In U.S. customary units, the pound-mass (lbm) is defined to
be exactly 0:45359237 kg.

Mass vs. Weight

Mass is not the same thing as weight, so it’s important not to confuse the two. The mass of a body is a
measure of the total amount of matter it contains; the weight of a body is the gravitational force on it due to
the Earth’s gravity. At the surface of the Earth, mass m and weight W are proportional to each other:

W = mg;

where g is the acceleration due to the Earth’s gravity, equal to 9.81 m/s2 . Remember: mass is mass, and is
measured in kilograms; weight is a force, and is measured in force units of newtons.

Time (Second)
Originally the base SI unit of time, the second (s), was defined to be 1/60 of 1/60 of 1/24 of the length of
a day, so that 60 seconds = 1 minute, 60 minutes = 1 hour, and 24 hours = 1 day. High-precision time
measurements have shown that the Earth’s rotation rate has short-term irregularities, along with a long-term
slowing due to tidal forces. So for a more accurate definition, in 1967 the second was re-defined to be based
on a definition using atomic clocks. The second is now defined to be the time required for 9,192,631,770
oscillations of a certain type of radiation emitted from a cesium-133 atom.

Although officially the symbol for the second is “s”, you will also often see people use “sec” to avoid
confusing lowercase “s” with the number “5”.

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The Ampere, Kelvin, and Candela
For this course, most quantities will be defined entirely in terms of meters, kilograms, and seconds. There
are four other SI base units, though: the ampere (A) (the base unit of electric current); the kelvin (K) (the
base unit of temperature); the candela (cd) (the base unit of luminous intensity, or light brightness); and the
mole (mol) (the base unit of amount of substance). With the 2019 re-definition of SI units, the ampere is now
defined by fixing the value of the elementary charge to exactly e = 1.602176634 x 10-19 A s. The kelvin is
now defined by fixing the value of Boltzmann’s constant to exactly kB = 1.380649 x 10-23 J/K. The candela
is a unit that measures the brightness of light, and has a somewhat complex definition that includes a model
of the response of the human eye to light of different wavelengths.

Amount of Substance (Mole)

Since we may have a use for the mole in this course, let’s look at its definition in detail. The simplest way to
think of it is as the name for a number. Just as “thousand” means 1;000, “million” means 1,000,000, and “billion”
means 1,000,000,000, in the same way “mole” refers to the number3 602,214,076,000,000,000,000,000,
or 6.02214076 x 1023. You could have a mole of grains of sand or a mole of Volkswagens, but most often
the mole is used to count atoms or molecules. There is a reason this number is particularly useful: since each
nucleon (proton and neutron) in an atomic nucleus has an average mass of 1.66053906660 x 10 -24 grams
(called an atomic mass unit, or amu), then there are 1/1.66053906660 x 1024, or 6.02214076 x 1023
nucleons per gram. In other words, one mole of nucleons has a mass of 1 gram. Therefore, if A is the atomic
weight of an atom, then A moles of nucleons has a mass of A grams. But A moles of nucleons is the same as
1 mole of atoms, so one mole of atoms has a mass (in grams) equal to the atomic weight. In other words

In short, the mole is useful when you need to convert between the mass of a material and the number of atoms
or molecules it contains. It’s important to be clear about what exactly you’re counting (atoms or molecules)
when using moles. It doesn’t really make sense to talk about “a mole of oxygen”, any more than it would be to
talk about “100 of oxygen”. It’s either a “mole of oxygen atoms” or a “mole of oxygen molecules”

For convenience, sometimes the word entity is used to mean “atom or molecule.” Then the formula for
determining the number of moles from the mass becomes

where entity weight means either atomic weight or molecular weight, depending on whether it’s atoms or
molecules that are being discussed. Note that although the base SI unit of mass is the kilogram, the mole is
defined by having the number of grams equal to the entity weight. Other kinds of “moles” have been defined,
such as the pound-mole, ouncemole, and kilogram-mole, in which the indicated unit of mass is numerically equal
to the entity weight. For example, 1 kilogram-mole of carbon-12 atoms is 12 kilograms of carbon-12, and
contains 6.02214076 x 10 26 carbon atoms. The SI mole is the same things as a gram-mole.

With the 2019 SI units re-definition, the mole is defined by setting Avogadro’s constant equal to exactly
NA = 6.02214076 x 1023 mol-1

SI Derived Units
In addition to the seven base units (m, kg, s, A, K, cd, mol), there are a number of so-called SI derived units
with special names. We’ll introduce these as needed, but a summary of all of them is shown in Appendix H
(Table H-2). These are just combinations of base units that occur often enough that it’s convenient to give
them special names.

Plane Angle (Radian)

One derived SI unit that we will encounter frequently is the SI unit of plane angle. Plane angles are commonly
measured in one of two units: degrees or radians. You’re probably familiar with degrees already: one full circle
is 3600, a semicircle is 1800 , and a right angle is 900

The SI unit of plane angle is the radian, which is defined to be that plane angle whose arc length is equal
to its radius. This means that a full circle is 2𝜋 radians, a semicircle is 𝜋 radians, and a right angle is 𝜋 /2
radians. To convert between degrees and radians, then, we have:

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 180
𝑑𝑒𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑠 = 𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑠
𝜋
and
𝜋
𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑠 = 𝑑𝑒𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑠
180

The easy way to remember these formulæ is to think in terms of units: 180 has units of degrees and 𝜋 has
units of radians, so in the first equation units of radians cancel on the right-hand side to leave degrees, and in
the second equation units of degrees cancel on the right-hand side to leave radians.

Occasionally you will see a formula that involves a “bare” angle that is not the argument of a trigonometric
function like the sine, cosine, or tangent. In such cases it is understood that the angle must be in radians. For
example, the radius of a circle r, angle 𝜃, and arc length s are related by

S=r𝜃 where it is understood that 𝜃 is in radians.

SI Prefixes
It’s often convenient to define both large and small units that measure the same thing. For example, in English
units, it’s convenient to measure small lengths in inches and large lengths in miles.

In SI units, larger and smaller units are defined in a systematic way by the use of prefixes to the SI base
or derived units. For example, the base SI unit of length is the meter (m), but small lengths may also be
measured in centimeters (cm, 0.01 m), and large lengths may be measured in kilometers (km, 1000 m). Table
H-3 in Appendix H shows all the SI prefixes and the powers of 10 they represent. You should memorize the
powers of10 for all the SI prefixes in this table.

The Standard Prefixes used in SI Units

One nice thing about the SI system is that there is a uniform prefix system that is used across all measured
quantities. For example, the prefix kilo means 1000. Thus a kilogram is 1000 grams or a kilometer is 1000
meters. All of the prefixes are some multiple of 10; thus, there is no remembering awkward quantities such as
12 inchs in one foot, three feet in a yard, 5280 feet in a mile etc. You should memorize the following prefixes (I
actually hope that you pretty much know most of them already!). You should also be able to manipulate
quantities in scientific notation. Try the problems at the bottom of this page to see if you are up on working with
numbers in SCIENTIFIC NOTATION.

Most of the quantities that we will discuss this semester have units that are expressable as some combination
of the three basic quantities Meter, Kilogram, Second which measure length, mass, and time respectively.

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To use the SI prefixes, simply add the prefix to the front of the name of the SI base or derived unit. The
symbol for the prefixed unit is the symbol for the prefix written in front of the symbol for the unit. For
example, kilometer (km) = 103 meter, microsecond ( 𝜇 s)= 10-6 s. But put the prefix on the gram (g), not
the kilogram: for example, 1 microgram ( 𝜇 g) = 10-6 g. For historical reasons, the kilogram is the only SI
base or derived unit with a prefix.

CGS Systems of Units

In some fields of physics (e.g. solid-state physics, plasma physics, and astrophysics), it has been customary to
use CGS units rather than SI units, so you may encounter them occasionally. There are several different CGS
systems in use: electrostatic, electromagnetic, Gaussian, and Heaviside-Lorentz units. These systems differ
in how they define their electric and magnetic units. Unlike SI units, none of these CGS systems defines a
base electrical unit, so electric and magnetic units are all derived units

British Engineering Units

Another system of units that is common in some fields of engineering is British engineering units. In this
system, the base unit of length is the foot (ft), and the base unit of time is the second (s). The base unit
of force is called the pound-force (lbf), and mass is measured units of slugs, where 1 slug has a weight of
32.17404855 lbf.

A related unit of mass (not part of the British engineering system) is called the pound-mass (lbm). At
the surface of the Earth, a mass of 1 lbm has a weight of 1 lbf, so sometimes the two are loosely used
interchangeably and called the pound (lb), as we do every day when we speak of weights in pounds.
SI prefixes are not used in the British engineering system.

Units as an Error-Checking Technique

Checking units can be used as an important error-checking technique called dimensional analysis. If you
derive an equation and find that the units don’t work out properly, then you can be certain you made a
mistake somewhere. If the units are correct, it doesn’t necessarily mean your derivation is correct (since you
could be off by a factor of 2, for example), but it does give you some confidence that you at least haven’t
made a units error. So checking units doesn’t tell you for certain whether or not you’ve made a mistake, but
it does help.
Here are some basic principles to keep in mind when working with units:
1. Units on both sides of an equation must match.
2. When adding or subtracting two quantities, they must have the same units.
3. Quantities that appear in exponents must be dimensionless.
4. The argument for functions like sin, cos, tan, sin-1 , cos-1 , tan-1 , log, and exp must be dimensionless.
5. When checking units, radians and steradians can be considered dimensionless.
6. When checking complicated units, it may be useful to break down all derived units into base units (e.g.
replace newtons with kg m s-2).

II UNIT CONVERSIONS
It is very common to have to work with quantities that are given in units other than the units you’d like to work
with. Converting from one set of units to another involves a straightforward, virtually foolproof technique
that’s very simple to double-check. We’ll illustrate the method here with some examples.

1. Write down the unit conversion factor as a ratio, and fill in the units in the numerator and denominator
so that the units cancel out as needed.
2. Now fill in the numbers so that the numerator and denominator contain the same length, time, etc. (This
is because you want each factor to be a multiplication by 1, so that you don’t change the quantity—only
its units.)

Simple Conversions
A simple unit conversion involves only one conversion factor. The method for doing the conversion is best
illustrated with an example.

Example. Convert 7 feet to inches.

Solution. First write down the unit conversion factor as a ratio, filling in the units as needed:
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Notice that the units of feet cancel out, leaving units of inches. The next step is to fill in numbers so that the
same length is in the numerator and denominator. Then do the arithmetic

More Complex Conversions

More complex conversions may involve more than one conversion factor. You’ll need to think about what
conversion factors you know, then put together a chain of them to get to the units you want.

Example. Convert 60 miles per hour to feet per second.

Solution. First, write down a chain of conversion factor ratios, filling in units so that they cancel out
correctly:

Units cancel out to leave ft/sec. Now fill in the numbers, putting the same length in the numerator and
denominator in the first factor, and the same time in the numerator and denominator in the second factor.
Then do the arithmetic

Example. Convert 250,000 furlongs per fortnight to meters per second.

Solution. We don’t know how to convert furlongs per fort night directly to meters per second, so we’ll have
to come up with a chain of conversion factors to do the conversion. We do know how to convert: furlongs
to miles, miles to kilometers, kilometers to meters, fortnights to weeks, weeks to days, days to hours, hours
to minutes, and minutes to seconds. So we start by writing conversion factor ratios, putting units where they
need to be so that the result will have the desired target units (m/s):

If you check the units here, you’ll see that almost everything cancels out; the only units left are m/s, which is
what we want to convert to. Now fill in the numbers: we want to put either the same length or the same time
in both the numerator and denominator:

Conversions Involving Powers

Occasionally we need to do something like convert an area or volume when we know only the length conversion
factor.

Example. Convert 2000 cubic feet to gallons.

Solution. Let’s think about what conversion factors we know. We know the conversion factor between
gallons and cubic inches. We don’t know the conversion factor between cubic feet and cubic inches, but we
can convert between feet and inches. The conversion factors will look like this:

With these units, the whole expression reduces to units of gallons. Now fill in the same length in the numerator
and denominator of the first factor, and the same volume in the numerator and denominator of the second
factor:

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III. SIGNIFICANT FIGURES
It is important to be honest when reporting a measurement, so that it does not appear to be more accurate than
the equipment used to make the measurement allows. We can achieve this by controlling the number of digits,
or significant figures, used to report the measurement.

Determining the Number of Significant Figures

The number of significant figures in a measurement, such as 2.531, is equal to the number of digits that are
known with some degree of confidence (2, 5, and 3) plus the last digit (1), which is an estimate or approximation.
As we improve the sensitivity of the equipment used to make a measurement, the number of significant figures
increases.

Rules for counting significant figures are summarized below.

1.) Zeros within a number are always significant. Both 4308 and 40.05 contain four significant figures.
(Because; 4308 is 4308 -or 4.308x103- and 40.05 is 40.05 –or 4005x10-2).
Example:
4308 has 4 significant figures.
40.05 has also 4 significant figures
6,000,001 has 7 significant figures

2.) Zeros that do nothing but set the decimal point are not significant. Thus, 470,000 has two significant
figures. (Because 470,000 is 47x104).
Example
470,000 has 2 significant figures
500 has 1 significant figures
90 has 1 significant figures

3.) Trailing zeros that aren’t needed to hold the decimal point are significant. For example, 4.00 has three
significant figures. (Because 4.00 is merely 4.00 –it includes .00 accuracy).
Example
4.00 has 3 significant figures
7.0000 has 5 significant figures.
5.0 has 2 significant figures

4.) Count all the numbers when using Scientific Notation.

Example,
1.30 x 10-2 has three significant figures.
12.51 x 105 has 4 significant figures
1.35623 x 10100 has 6 significant figures

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 PHYSICS
Problem set #1 (Unit measurement, unit conversion & significant figures)

Name: ___________________________________
Course & year: ____________ Score: _________

TEST I: Fill in the blanks

1. The study of light is a major field of physics called _________________________

2. Studies the nature of heat is called ______________________

3. A physicist who discovered the theory of relativity. ______________________

4. What does SI stands for? ____________________________

5. The kelvin is defined by fixing the value of Boltzmann’s constant to exactly what value? ________________

6. The value of speed of light is exactly ______________________

7. from the equation W = mg, what is the value of the acceleration due to gravity, g? __________________

8. It describes the peculiar motion of very small bodies (atomic sizes and smaller). _______________________

9. The distance between the Earth and the Sun is about how many miles? __________________________________

10. Originally the kilogram (kg) was defined to be the mass of how many cubic meter? _______________________

TEST II:

1. Express the following numbers in scientific notation:

(a) 0.015 (b) 0.0000002 (c) 54800 (d) 0.0000057 (e) 620000000

2. determine the significant figures of the following:

(a) 400610 (b) 0.00067 (c) 80.001 (d) 1200000 (e) 12.567 x 10-6

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