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 Ch 1: Units, Physical Quantities, and Vectors
Units and Physical Quantities
Adam P. Cometa
National Institute of Physics
University of the Philippines Diliman
15 January 2019
Units and Physical
Quantities

Objectives
After the discussion, you should be able to:

❑Describe what physical quantities are

❑Convert quantities into different units
❑Justify the dimensional consistency of a relation
❑Recognize the importance of significant figures
❑Express quantities in scientific notation

5
Units and Physical
Quantities

Objectives
After the discussion, you should be able to:

❑Describe what physical quantities are

❑Convert quantities into different units
❑Justify the dimensional consistency of a relation
❑Recognize the importance of significant figures
❑Express quantities in scientific notation

6
Units and Physical
Quantities

Nature of Physics
MATTER
PHENOMENA & PRINCIPLES &
EXPERIMENTS THEORIES
ENERGY
➢ Physicists seek pattern that relate the phenomena of
nature
➢ The patterns are called physical theories
➢ A very well established or widely used theory is called a
physical law or principle.
7
Units and Physical
Quantities

The role of the scientist

How are you going to verify a theory?

Time 60 seconds
Length 1.0 meter
Mass 50 kilograms

8
Units and Physical
Quantities

Physical Quantity
➢Value used to describe physical phenomena that can be
quantified by measurements

[Physical Quantity] = [Number (magnitude)] + [Unit (Standard)]

UNITS ARE VERY IMPORTANT!!!

F = 30 N

(physical quantity) (magnitude) (standard)

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Units and Physical
Quantities

Physical Quantities
➢Defines the nature of the measurable quantity and the
standard with which you are comparing to

Systems of Measurement:
1) English System
2) SI system

10
Units and Physical
Quantities

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Units and Physical
Quantities

➢ Kilogram – [kg]
➢ Micrometer – [𝜇m]
➢ Milliseconds – [ms]
➢ Gigaherts – [GHz]
➢ Megaampere – [MA]

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Units and Physical
Quantities

Objectives
After the discussion, you should be able to:

✓Describe what physical quantities are

❑Convert quantities into different units
❑Justify the dimensional consistency of a relation
❑Recognize the importance of significant figures
❑Express quantities in scientific notation

13
Units and Physical
Quantities

Objectives
After the discussion, you should be able to:

✓Describe what physical quantities are

❑Convert quantities into different units
❑Justify the dimensional consistency of a relation
❑Recognize the importance of significant figures
❑Express quantities in scientific notation

14
Units and Physical
Quantities

Physical Quantities

An equation describing a physical phenomena must always be

dimensionally consistent,
i.e., the units on the left-hand side and right-hand side of the equation
must be the same

𝑑 = 𝑣𝑡
𝐿
𝐿 = ([𝑇])
𝑇

15
Units and Physical
Quantities

Dimensional Analysis

➢Dimensional analysis can be used to:

➢Derive an equation
➢Check if the equation is dimensionally correct
➢Know the units or the dimension of a physical quantity

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Units and Physical
Quantities

Example
Check whether each of the following equations is dimensionally
correct:
1) 𝑠 = 𝑣𝑡
2) 𝑣 = 𝑚 + 2𝑎𝑠
1
3) 𝑠 = 𝑣𝑡 + 𝑎𝑡 2
2
where
s = [length] m = [mass]
v = [length/time] t = [time]
a = [length/time2]

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𝑠 = 𝑣𝑡

∙
✓
𝑣 = 𝑚 + 2𝑎𝑠

∙
✘
1
𝑠 = 𝑣𝑡 + 𝑎𝑡 2
2

∙ ∙ ✓
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What if the units are not
consistent?

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Units and Physical
Quantities

Strategy

➢In all calculations, write down the units explicitly.

➢Treat all units as algebraic quantities.
➢Use conversion factors.
➢Verify that the units combine algebraically to give the
desired unit for the answer.

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Units and Physical
Quantities

Example 1.2 Young and Freedman

The world’s largest cut diamond is the First Star of Africa. Its volume is
1.84 cubic inches. What is its volume in cubic meters?

Solution:
We need conversion factor for inches to meters.

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Units and Physical
Quantities

Objectives
After the discussion, you should be able to:

✓Describe what physical quantities are

✓Convert quantities into different units
✓Justify the dimensional consistency of a relation
❑Recognize the importance of significant figures
❑Express quantities in scientific notation

23
Units and Physical
Quantities

Objectives
After the discussion, you should be able to:

✓Describe what physical quantities are

✓Convert quantities into different units
✓Justify the dimensional consistency of a relation
❑Recognize the importance of significant figures
❑Express quantities in scientific notation

24
Units and Physical
Quantities

Try measuring the thickness of your pen…

No measurement is exact.

Uncertainty
➢Margin of error inherent to a
measurement due to
limitations of a measuring
device
➢Tells how precise a
measurement is

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Units and Physical
Quantities

Accuracy vs. Precision

Attendance quiz!!!!
Which is more precise:

a) A wall clock that can

measure up to
seconds
b) A stopwatch that can
measure up to
milliseconds

Precision expresses degree of reproducibility.

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Units and Physical
Quantities

Accuracy / Uncertainties
Some representations of measurement uncertainty
➢56.47 ± 0.02 mm
➢56.47(2) mm
➢47 Ω ± 10%

But in many cases, the uncertainty is not stated

explicitly.

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Units and Physical
Quantities

Significant Figures
The uncertainty is indicated instead by the number of meaningful digits
or significant figures.

2.91 mm → 3 significant figures

The last digit is in the hundreths place
Uncertainty is about 0.01 mm

137 km → 3 significant figures

Uncertainty is about 1 km

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Units and Physical
Quantities

Significant Figures in Operations

In this course, we usually give quantities with 3 significant figures.
However, we have to round, NOT truncate.

525 m / 311 m = 1.688102894

= 1.69

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Units and Physical
Quantities

Scientific Notation
When we work with very large or very small numbers, we can
show significant figures much more easily by using scientific
notation, sometimes known as the powers-of-10 notation.

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Units and Physical
Quantities

Example:
Calculate the following, round off to the correct number of significant
figures, and express your result in scientific notation:

3.141592 4.00 × 1015 [𝑚]

𝟏. 𝟐𝟔 × 𝟏𝟎𝟔 𝒎

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Units and Physical
Quantities

Attendance Quiz

➢Using dimensional analysis to know the unit of a physical quantity

Determine the unit of the quantity 𝐶 in the equation

𝐴 = 𝐵2 𝐶 + 𝐷
where 𝐷 is in [𝑚] and 𝐵 is in [𝑚/𝑠].

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