NAME:

YEAR AND SECTION:

SI Units: Fundamental and Derived Units

There are two major systems of units used in the world: SI units (acronym for the French Le
Système International d’Unités, also known as the metric system), and English units (also known as
the imperial system). English units were historically used in nations once ruled by the British
Empire. Today, the United States is the only country that still uses English units extensively.
Virtually every other country in the world now uses the metric system, which is the standard
system agreed upon by scientists and mathematicians.

Activity 1: Complete the table below.

Quantity Name Symbol

Length Meter
Kilogram Kg
Time Second S
Electric current
Temperature
Amount of substance Mol
Cd

Using Scientific Notation with Physical Measurements

Scientific notation is a way of writing numbers that are too large or small to be conveniently
written as a decimal. For example, consider the number 840,000,000,000,000. It’s a rather large
number to write out. The scientific notation for this number is 8.40 × 1014. Scientific notation
follows this general format

x   ×   10y

In this format x is the value of the measurement with all placeholder zeros removed. In the example
above, x is 8.4. The x is multiplied by a factor, 10 y, which indicates the number of placeholder zeros
in the measurement. Placeholder zeros are those at the end of a number that is 10 or greater, and
at the beginning of a decimal number that is less than 1. In the example above, the factor is 10 14.
This tells you that you should move the decimal point 14 positions to the right, filling in placeholder
zeros as you go. In this case, moving the decimal point 14 places creates only 13 placeholder zeros,
indicating that the actual measurement value is 840,000,000,000,000.
Numbers that are fractions can be indicated by scientific notation as well. Consider the number
0.0000045. Its scientific notation is 4.5 × 10–6. Its scientific notation has the same format

x   ×   10y

Here, x is 4.5. However, the value of y in the 10y factor is negative, which indicates that the
measurement is a fraction of 1. Therefore, we move the decimal place to the left, for a negative y. In
our example of 4.5 × 10–6, the decimal point would be moved to the left six times to yield the original
number, which would be 0.0000045

Activity 1.2 Scientific Notation

 Express the following numbers in scientific notation.
1. 98
2. 0.0026
3. 0.0000401
4. 643.9
5. 816
6. 45800
7. 0.0068
8. 5600
9. 902
10.0.0045

 Transform the following scientific notation to standard notation

1. 6.455 x 104 ( 64550 ) SAMPLE
-6
2. 3.1 x 10
3. 5.00 x 10-2
4. 7.2 x 103
5. 9 x 105
6. 7.4 x 10-3
7. 9.3 x 102
8. 2.5 x 10-4
9. 4.01 x 101

10. 2.4 x 100