Physical Quantities

PHYSICAL QUANTITIES have a numerical value and a unit of measurement, which is a specific
magnitude of a physical quantity that has been adopted by convention.

What Is SI?

SI is the abbreviation of International System of Units, which is the most widely used set of units by
scientist that defines a measurement.

SI Units of Physical Quantity

Table Labeling Conventions

 To label a table, it is conventional to have the:

 Independent variable

 Dependent variable

What Are Unit Prefixes?

Estimation of Common Physical Quantities

• Involves looking for a value that is approximately close to the true value of a physical quantity
without measurement

• Some values of common physical quantities are as follows:

Measurement – the process of comparing the size or quantity of matter with a chosen standard.

The ancient Sumerians and Egyptians were the first to devise units of measurement.

– Two common systems of measurement

– 1. English system- used in the U.S. and few other countries.

 – 2. Metric system- adapted by the rest of the other countries. Uses decimal base.

– The updated version of

metric system is the INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF UNITS, abbreviated by S.I.(abbreviation for
the French equivalent, “Le Systeme International d’ Unités”)

It is the modernized
version of metric system

In doing measurements in science, it is impossible that you will not encounter the need to convert
unit to another unit. This is called CONVERSION.

– Scientific Notation

– -It is used to measure either a very small or very large numbers or quantities.

– -It has an equation of N x 10 ⁿ

– n = Exponent / Power

– N = Coefficient

– 10 = Base

– Note:

– Decimal point moved Left to Right, the sign is

(-) negative

– Decimal point moved Right to Left, the sign is

(+) positive

The Measurements of Uncertainty

– UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS or ERROR ANALYSIS is used to calculate uncertainty

– A value that is measured should have an estimate together with the uncertainty value.

Making an experimental result with degree of uncertainty allows scientists to create judgments
regarding the quality of the experiment

PRECISION VS. ACCURACY

– Precision determines the quality of the measurement while accuracy shows the closeness of
your answer to the “exact” answer.

Forms of Errors

– RANDOM ERRORS

• Are defined as variations in the measured data brought by the limitations of the measuring
device

• Use statistical analysis

 – SYSTEMATIC ERRORS

– Are defined as reproducible inaccurate data that are constantly in the same direction

Causes of Error in Doing Physics Laboratory Experiments

1. Inadequate definition (either systematic or random)

2. Unable to include a factor (systematic)

3. Factors due to the environment (either systematic or random)

4. Limited scale of the instrument (random)

5. Unable to calibrate or check zero scale of the instrument (systematic)

6. Variations in the physical measurement (random)

7. Parallax (either systematic or random)

8. Personal errors

Average or Mean

Average Deviation

– AVERAGE DEVIATION is defined as how the single measurement differs from the mean.

– It is expressed mathematically as:

Standard Deviation

STANDARD DEVIATION is mathematical way to characterize the spread of a set of data. It is slightly
greater than average deviation and is used because of its link with normal distribution that is often
encountered in statistics

Standard Deviation is the best and most accurate measure of variability.

Its symbol is σ (the greek letter sigma)