Chapter 1

Basic Concepts
DIGIT GROUPING

To make numbers easier to read, some international scientific committees have recommended the practice of separating digits into groups of three to the right and to the left of decimal points, as in 64 325.473 53. No separation is necessary, however, for just four digits, and they are preferably not separated. For example, either 4138 or 4 138 is acceptable, as is 0.1278 or 0.127 8, with 4138 and 0.1278 preferred. The international committees did not approve of the use of the comma to separate digits because in some countries the comma is used in place of the decimal point. This digit grouping is used throughout this book.

INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF UNITS

The Znterncrtionul Sq~stewofUnits ( S l ) is the international measurement language. SI has nine base units, which are shown in Table 1-1 along with the unit symbols. Units of all other physical quantities are derived from these.
Table 1-1 Physical Quantity
length mass time current t em per at u re amount of substance luminous intensity plane angle solid angle

Unit
meter kilogram second ampere kelvin mole candela radian steradian

Symbol
m kg
S

K mol cd rad sr

There is a decimal relation, indicated by prefixes, among multiples and submultiples of each base unit. An SI prefix is a term attached to the beginning of an SI unit name to form either a decimal multiple or submultiple. For example, since kilo is the prefix for one thousand, a kilometer equals 1000 m. And because micro is the SI prefix for one-millionth, one microsecond equals 0.000 001 s. The SI prefixes have symbols as shown in Table 1-2, which also shows the corresponding powers of 10. For most circuit analyses, only mega, kilo, milli, micro, nano, and pico are important. The proper location for a prefix symbol is in front of a unit symbol, as in km for kilometer and cm for centimeter.

ELECTRIC CHARGE
Scientists have discovered two kinds of electric charge: posititye and negative. Positive charge is carried by subatomic particles called protons, and negative charge by subatomic particles called electrons. All amounts of charge are integer multiples of these elemental charges. Scientists have also found that charges
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