Physics Notes by KK sir
Units & Measurements 1
CHAPTER 2
UNITS & MEASUREMENTS
Physical Quantity: Those quantities which can
be measured are known as Physical quantities.
Or, the quantities by means of which laws
of physics can be described are known as
Physical quantities.
E.g. Length, Mass, Time etc.
 Emotions, Sorrow, Love & Anger are not
Physical quantities.
Types of Physical Quantity
On the basis of Magnitude & Direction
(1) Scalar (Magnitude only): These quantities do
not have any direction e.g. Length, time, work,
energy etc.
 Magnitude of a physical quantity can be
negative. In that case negative sign indicates
that the numerical value of the quantity under
consideration is negative. It does not specify
the direction.
 Scalar quantities can be added or subtracted
with the help of following ordinary laws of
addition or subtraction.
(2) Vector (magnitude and direction): These
quantities have magnitude & direction.
E.g. displacement, velocity, acceleration, force
etc.
 Vector physical quantities can be added or
subtracted according to vector laws of addition.
These laws are different from laws of ordinary
addition.
Note: There are certain physical quantities which
behave neither as scalar nor as vector. For
example, moment of inertia is not a vector as by
changing the sense of rotation its value is not
changed. It is also not a scalar as it has
different values in different directions (i.e. about
different axes). Such physical quantities are
called Tensors.
(3) Ratio (numerical value only): When a
physical quantity is a ratio of two similar quantities,
it has no unit.
E.g. Relative density = Density of object/Density of
water at 4oC, Refractive index = Velocity of light in
air/Velocity of light in medium, Strain = Change in
dimension/Original dimension etc.
Note: Angle is exceptional physical quantity,
which though is a ratio of two similar physical
quantities (angle = arc / radius) but still requires a
unit (degrees or radians) to specify it along with its
numerical value.
On the basis of Dependency
Fundamental and Derived Quantities
(1) Fundamental quantities: Out of large number
of physical quantities which exist in nature, there
are only few quantities which are independent of
all other quantities and do not require the help of
any other physical quantity for their definition,
therefore these are called absolute quantities.
These quantities are also called fundamental or
base quantities, as all other quantities are based
upon and can be expressed in terms of these
quantities.
(2) Derived quantities: All other physical
quantities can be derived by suitable multiplication
or division of different powers of fundamental
quantities. These are therefore called derived
quantities.
 If length is defined as a fundamental quantity
then area and volume are derived from length
and are expressed in term of length with power
2 and 3 over the term of length.
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Units & Measurements 2
Note: In mechanics Length, Mass and time are
arbitrarily chosen as fundamental quantities.
However this set of fundamental quantities is not a
unique choice. In fact any three quantities in
mechanics can be termed as fundamental as all
other quantities in mechanics can be expressed in
terms of these. E.g. if speed and time are taken as
fundamental quantities, length will become a
derived quantity because then length will be
expressed as Speed ×Time. And if force and
acceleration are taken as fundamental quantities,
then mass will be defined as Force / acceleration
and will be termed as a derived quantity.

Measurement:
Question: Why we require Measurement?
Answer: To have the idea about physical size,
conditions, range etc.
Measurement is the comparison of a quantity with
a ‘Standard’ of the same physical quantity.
E.g. Length (quantity) = 3 hands (Assumed
Standard) = 10 pens (Assumed Standard), its
unscientific and created confusion.

Unit:
All physical quantities are measured w.r.t.
standard magnitude of the same physical quantity
and these standards are called Unit. E.g. meter,
second, kilogram etc.
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Units & Measurements 3
Note: Normally each physical quantity requires a Table 1
unit or standard for its specification so it appears
that there must be as many units as there are
physical quantities. However, it is not so. It has
been found that if in mechanics we choose
arbitrarily units of any three physical quantities we
can express the units of all other physical
quantities in mechanics in terms of these.
Arbitrarily the physical quantities mass,
length and time are chosen for this purpose. So
any unit of mass, length and time in mechanics
are called a fundamental, absolute or base unit.
Other units which can be expressed in terms of
fundamental units are called derived units. For
example light year or km is a fundamental unit as
it is a unit of length while s–1, m2 or kg/m are
derived units as these are derived from units of
time, mass and length respectively.
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Units & Measurements 4
Some units retained for general use (Though outside SI)

Note: Apart from fundamental and derived units

we also use very frequently practical units. These
may be fundamental or derived units.
E.g. light year is a practical unit (fundamental) of
distance while horse power (745.7 watt ≈ 746
watt) is a practical unit (derived) of power.

 Practical units may or may not belong to a

system but can be expressed in any system of
units. E.g.1 mile = 1.6 km = 1.6 × 103 m.

Question: Who Decides the Units? Or how is a

standard Unit chosen for a physical
quantity?
Answer: The first thing is that it should have
International acceptance. Otherwise, everyone will
Choose his or her own unit for the quantity and it
will be difficult to communicate freely among the
persons distributed over the world. A body named
Conference Generale des Poids et Mesures or CGPM
also known as General Conference on Weight
and Measures in English has been given the
authority to decide the units by international
agreement. It holds its meetings and any changes
in standard units are communicated through the
publications of the Conference.

SI Units:
 In 1971 CGPM held its meeting and decided a
system of units which is known as the
International System of Units.
It is abbreviated as SI from the French name Le
Systeme International d'Unites. This system is widely
used throughout the world.
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Units & Measurements 5

 The procedures to define a standard value as a

Unit are quite often not very simple and use
modern equipments. Thus, a complete
understanding of these procedures cannot be
given in this chapter. We briefly mention the
definitions of the base units which may serve as a
reference if needed.

ORDER OF MAGNITUDE:

In physics, we come across quantities which vary

over a wide range. We talk of the size of a
mountain and the size of the tip of a pin. We talk
of the mass of our galaxy and the mass of a
hydrogen atom. We talk of the age of the universe
and the time taken by an electron to complete a
circle around the proton in a hydrogen atom. It
becomes quite difficult to get a feel of largeness or
smallness of such quantities. To express such
widely varying numbers, one uses the powers of
ten method.

In this method, each number is expressed as a x

10 b where 1 ≤ a < 10 and b is a positive or
negative integer. Thus the diameter of the sun is
expressed as 1.39 x 10 9 m and the diameter of a
hydrogen atom as 1.06 x 10 -10 m. To get an
approximate idea of the number, one may round
the number ‘a’ to 1 if it is less than or equal to 5
and to 10 if it is greater than 5.

The number can then be expressed approximately

as 10 b. We then get the order of magnitude of that
number. Thus, the diameter of the sun is of the
order of 10 9 m and that of a hydrogen atom is of
the order of 10-10 m. More precisely, the exponent
of 10 in such a representation is called the order
of magnitude of that quantity. Thus, the diameter
of the sun is 19 orders of magnitude larger than
the diameter of a hydrogen atom. This is because
the order of magnitude of 10 9 is 9 and of 10 -10 is
— 10. The difference is 9 — (— 10) = 19.

To quickly get an approximate value of a quantity

in a given physical situation, one can make an
order of magnitude calculation. In this all numbers

are approximated to 10 b form and the calculation
is made.
E.g. Let us estimate the number of persons that
may sit in a circular field of radius 800 m.
The area of the field is
SI Prefixes
The magnitudes of physical quantities vary over a
wide range. We talk of separation between two
protons inside a nucleus which is about 10 -15 m
and the distance of a quasar from the earth which
is about 10 26 m. The mass of an electron is 9.1 x
10-31 kg and that of our galaxy is about 2.2 x 10 41
kg. The CGPM recommended standard prefixes
for certain powers of 10. Following Table shows
these prefixes.
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Units & Measurements 6
Measurement of Length, Mass & Time:
Measurement of Length
Direct methods for the measurement of lengt: A
metre scale is used for lengths from 10–3 m (1 mm)
to 102 m (1 cm). A vernier callipers is used for
lengths to an accuracy of 10–4 m (0.1 mm)(= Least
count). A screw gauge and a spherometer can be
used to measure lengths as less as to 10–5 m
(0.01 mm)(= Least count).
To measure lengths beyond these ranges, we
make use of some special indirect methods.
 Measurement of Large Distances
(i) Accessible Object (Like Tree)
(ii) Inaccessible Object (Like Mountain)
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Units & Measurements 7
 Measurement of Very Large Distances

Very Large distances such as the distance of a

planet or a star from the earth cannot be
measured directly with a metre scale or above
methods. An important method in such cases is
the parallax method.

Parallax method: Parallax is the apparent shift in

the position of an object with respect to another
when we shift our eye sidewise.

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Units & Measurements 8
Oleic Acid Method
The idea is to first form mono-molecular layer of
oleic acid on water surface.

Question. The nearest star to our solar system is

4.29 light years away. How much is this distance
in terms of parsecs? How much parallax would
this star (named Alpha Centauri) show when
viewed from two locations of the Earth six months
apart in its orbit around the Sun ?
Ans- 1.32 parsec, 2.64” (second of arc)

 Estimation of Very Small Distances: Size of

a Molecule

 Optical microscope can resolve particles with

sizes (10–6 m to 10–7 m), as the visible light have
the range of wavelengths is from about 4000 Å
to 7000 Å (1 angstrom = 1 Å = 10 -10 m). Hence
an optical microscope cannot resolve particles
with sizes smaller than this.

 Electron Microscope used accelerated electron

beam instead of Visible light beam. Electron
beams can be focussed (due to bending by
Magnetic field) by properly designed electric
and magnetic fields. The resolution of such an
electron microscope is limited finally by the fact
that electrons can also behave as waves! (You
will learn more about this in class XII). The
wavelength of an electron can be as small as a
fraction of an angstrom (100,000 times smaller
than wavelength of visible light). Such electron
microscopes with a resolution of 0.6 Å have
been built. They can almost resolve atoms and
molecules in a material. In recent times,
tunnelling microscopy has been developed in
which again the limit of resolution is better than
an angstrom. It is possible to estimate the sizes
of molecules.

 Another simple & special method is used to

measure a very small size, like that of a
molecule (10–8 m to 10–10 m), is Oleic acid
method. (Oleic acid is a soapy liquid with large
molecular size of the order of 10–9 m.) Note: (i) Certain special length units for short and
large lengths.
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Units & Measurements 9
1 fermi = 1 f = 10–15 m Range of Masses
1 angstrom = 1 Å = 10–10 m
1 astronomical unit = 1 AU (average distance of
the Sun from the Earth) = 1.496 × 1011 m
1 light year = 1 ly= 9.46 × 10 15 m (distance that
light travels with velocity of 3 × 10 8 m s–1 in 1
year)
1 parsec = 3.08 × 1016 m (Parsec is the distance at
which average radius of earth’s orbit subtends
an angle of 1 arc second)

(ii) The smallest possible size is the planck length

≈ 1.6×10-35 m.
Range and order of lengths

Measurement of Time

 To measure any time interval we need a clock.

We now use an atomic standard of time,
which is based on the periodic vibrations
produced in a cesium atom. This is the basis of
the cesium clock, sometimes called atomic
clock, used in the national standards. Such
standards are available in many laboratories.

 In the cesium atomic clock, the second is taken

as the time needed for 9,192,631,770 vibrations
of the radiation corresponding to the transition
between the two hyperfine levels of the ground
state of cesium-133 atom. The vibrations of the
cesium atom regulate the rate of this cesium
atomic clock just as the vibrations of a balance
wheel regulate an ordinary wristwatch or the
Measurement of Mass vibrations of a small quartz crystal regulate a
quartz wristwatch.
Mass is a basic property of matter. It does not
depend on the temperature, pressure or location
of the object in space. The SI unit of mass is
kilogram (kg).
While dealing with atoms and molecules, the
kilogram is an inconvenient unit. In this case, there
is an important standard unit of mass, called the
unified atomic mass unit (u), which has been
established for expressing the mass of atoms as

1 unified atomic mass unit = 1u

= (1/12) of the mass of an atom of carbon-12
isotope ( 12 6C ) including the mass of
electrons
= 1.66 × 10–27 kg
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Units & Measurements 10
Range and order of time intervals

Note: You may notice that there is an interesting

coincidence between the numbers appearing in
Tables of Ranges of Lengths, Masses & Time
Intervals. Note that the ratio of the longest and
shortest lengths of objects in our universe is about
1041. Interestingly enough, the ratio of the longest
and shortest time intervals associated with the
events and objects in our universe is also about
1041. This number, 1041 comes up again in Table
of Range of Masses which lists typical masses of
objects. The ratio of the largest and smallest
masses of the objects in our universe is about
(1041)2. Is this a curious coincidence between
these large numbers purely accidental?

Dimensions of Physical Quantities:

Dimensions: The word dimension has a special

meaning in Physics. It defines the nature of a
physical quantity. E.g. Height, Radius, Perimeter,
Daimeter, Circumference etc. measured in m, cm,
foot etc. are called “Distance”. Its dimension is
“Length” represented by symbol ‘L’.

 When a derived quantity is expressed in terms

of fundamental quantities, it is written as a
product of different powers of the fundamental
quantities. The powers to which fundamental
quantities must be raised in order to express
the given physical quantity are called its
dimensions.
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 Always physical quantity that is expressed in

terms of the base quantities is enclosed in
square brackets to indicate that the equation is
among the dimensions and not among the
magnitudes.
 Such an expression for a physical quantity in
terms of the fundamental quantities is called the
dimensional equation. If we consider only the
R.H.S. of the equation, the expression is
termed as dimensional formula.
Dimensional Formulae of Physical Quantities:
(From Xerox)
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Standard Deviation:
Let x1,x2,x3,......xN are the, results of an experiment
repeated N times. The standard deviation σ is
defined as

, Where is the
average of all the values of x.