Chapter 1: Measurement

 Quantities
 Units, Standards & SI System
 Prefixes
 Dimensions & Dimensional Analysis
 Errors & Accuracy

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 Lesson Objectives
At the end of the lesson, students should be able to:
1. state the meaning & give examples of physical
quantities
2. distinguish between base quantities & derived
quantities
3. apply dimensional analysis to solve equations
4. state the difference types of errors
5. define the terms ‘precision’ and ‘accuracy’
6. determine the uncertainty of a measurement.

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 Physical Quantities
Physics is a quantitative science based
on measurement.
A physical quantity is quantity with a
numerical value and units.

Physical quantities are assigned to

measurements taken.

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 Base and Derived Quantities
There are so many physical quantities and they
can be categorised as base and derived
quantities.

Base quantities are the ones that you can measure

directly by using suitable instruments.
Mass, length and time are examples of base
quantities.

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 The International System of Units or SI (Système
International), is a name adopted by the Eleventh
General Conference on Weights and Measures,
held in Paris in 1960, for a universal, unified, self-
consistent system of measurement units based on
the mks (meter-kilogram-second) system *.

* Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2003. © 1993-2002 Microsoft Corporation.

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 Table 1. Base Quantities

QUANTITY NAME OF BASE SI UNIT SYMBOL

Length meter m
Mass kilogram kg
Time second s
Electric current ampere A
Temperature Kelvin K
Amount of substance mole mol
Luminous intensity candela cd

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Any physical quantity will comprise of certain
base quantities.
If you combine two or more base quantities
accordingly, you will get a derived quantity.
For example, if you combine length and time
accordingly, you might find the speed, which is
a derived quantity.
Other derived quantities include area, acceleration,
density, energy and power .

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 Table 2 : Derived Quantities

QUANTITY NAME OF DERIVED Sl SYMBOL

UNIT
Area square metre m2
Volume cubic metre m3
Velocity metres per second m/s
Acceleration metres per second squared m/s2
Density kilograms per cubic metres kg/m3
Current density amperes per square metre A/m2
Magnetic field amperes per metre A/m
strength
Specific volume cubic metres per kilogram m3/kg
Luminance candelas per square metre cd/m2

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 Vector and Scalar Quantities
A physical quantity is categorized either as a
vector or scalar quantity.
A scalar quantity is a quantity with magnitude
only. Examples are distance, mass and energy.
A vector quantity is a quantity with both
magnitude and direction. Examples include
displacement, velocity and force.

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 Standards
Every unit used as measurement of a certain quantity
has a standard which is accepted by international
agreement.
For example, the standard of length...
1 meter = 1650763.73 times the wavelength of
light emitted by krypton-86 (1960).
1 meter = path travelled by light in vacuum in
1/299792458 second (1983).

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Similarly, the standard of mass and time...
1 kilogram = mass of 1 cubic decimetre of pure
water at the temperature of its maximum density
(4.0° C/39.2° F)

1 second = 1/86,400 of a mean solar day or one

complete rotation of the Earth on its axis in relation
to the Sun. (redefined in 1967 in terms of the
resonant frequency of the caesium atom, that is, the
frequency at which this atom absorbs energy).

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 Prefix

When dealing with very large or very small

quantities, a prefix to the unit name is used
that has the effect of multiplying the unit by
some power of ten. An example is the
milli-second (10−3 s)

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 Table 3 : Prefixes

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Dimension and Dimension Analysis
Every quantity has a dimension expressed in
terms of the basic units.
The symbols for the dimensions of the basic
units mass, length and time are M, L and T
respectively.
The dimension of any derived quantity can be
expressed in terms of M, L and T.

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 Quantity Symbol Units Dimension

Mass m kg M

Distance x m L

Time t s T

Velocity v m s-1 LT-1

Momentum p kg ms-1 MLT-1

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Dimensional analysis can be applied to determine
how the period, T, of a simple pendulum depends on:
l, m, and/or g
T = k l wm xg z
[ T ] = [ k l w m x g z ] = Lw M x (L/T2)2
T = Lw+z Mx T-2z
w + z = 0, x = 0, -2z = 1
z = -½ , w = ½ , x = 0
l
T = k l ½ g -½ T =k
g
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 Errors
The usual meaning of the word error is
mistake.
However the term error is used in experimental
physics to describe the quantity by which result
obtained by observation differs from an
accurate determination (‘actual value’).
Error is also called uncertainty.

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 So in every practical measurement there is
some degree of error or uncertainty.

In assessing errors, whether human or

instrumental, there are two types of
error:- random and systematic errors.

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 Random errors

Random error results from unknown and

unpredictable variations in experimental
situations.
Random errors can be also referred to as
accidental errors and are at times beyond the
control of the observer.

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Random errors will cause the measured value to
be sometimes higher or lower than the actual
value.
Taking a large number of readings and then
finding the mean value can reduce the effect of
random errors.
Source of random errors can be mechanical
vibrations of the experimental setup or
unpredictable fluctuations in temperature, etc.

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 Systematic errors

A reading consistently shifted in one direction

is called a systematic error.
Systematic errors are usually associated with
particular measurement instruments or
techniques such as an improperly calibrated
instrument.

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 Other examples include zero error and
parallax error.
Human reaction time can also be classified
under this category.
Systematic errors are more serious form of error
since they cannot be reduced by taking
repeated readings or by any other form of
averaging.

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 Accuracy and Precision
The accuracy of a measurement signifies how
close it comes to the true value.
Precision refers to the agreement among
repeated measurements, the measure of how
close together they are.
The more precise the measurements, the closer
together they are.

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 Good precision but poor accuracy

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 Poor precision and poor accuracy.
(average reading has good accuracy)

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 Good precision and good accuracy

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 If both types of error are small, then the
measurement is accurate and precise.
One point to note is that the degree of accuracy or
uncertainty of a measurement largely depend on
the quality of the instrument and the skills of the
person carrying out the experiment.
The degree of accuracy or uncertainty of a
measurement can usually be indicated by the
number of significant figures used.

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Examples:
A visitor to a Museum was admiring a Tyrannosaurus fossil,
and asked a nearby museum employee how old it was.
"That skeleton's sixty-five million and three years, two
months and eighteen days old," the employee replied.
"How can you know it that well?" she asked.
"Well, when I started working here, I asked a scientist the
exact same question, and he said it was sixty-five million
years old – and that was three years, two months and
eighteen days ago."
In the above example, the humor is that the employee fails to
understand the scientist's implication of the uncertainty in the
age of the fossil.

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Examples
For each of these measurement, determine the uncertainty.
1. The length of the table is 12.52 m.

2. The girl’s weight is 45 kg.

3. The diameter of the wire is 5.25 mm.

4. The fossils are 3 × 106 years old.

5. The period of oscillation of the pendulum is 1.2 s.

6. The population of Malaysia is 24.5 million.

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