UNITS AND MEASUREMENTS

Common SI prefixes:
Multiples and Submultiples Prefixes Symbols
1 000 000 000 000 tera T
1000 000 000 giga G
1 000 000 mega M
1000 kilo k
100 hecto h
10 deka da
Base unit: 1
0.1 deci d
0.01 centi c
0.001 milli m
0.000 001 micro
0.000 000 001 nano n
0.000 000 000 001 pico p
0.000 000 000 000 001 femto f
0.000 000 000 000 000 001 atto a

Measurement of length: Length of various objects or distances between the objects differ widely
ranging from the radius of proton of about 10-15m to the average size of the universe with a radius
of about 1026m.

Some of the simple measurement of length involves the use of

a) A metre scale for lengths from 10-3m to 102m.
b) Vernier callipers for lengths to accuracy of about 10-4m.
c) A screw gauge or spherometer to measure lengths of the order of 10-5m.
In order to measure lengths beyond these ranges some special indirect methods are adopted.
One of them is the parallax method.

Parallax: It is the change in the position of an object to its background, when the object is seen
from two different positions.
The distance between the two different points of observation is called the Basis.

Measurement of large distance by parallax method:

Let and are the two positions of observation of a distant object .
Let be the distance between the distant object and the earth.
The distance between and be
be the angle made by two opposite ends and .

Then,

Where is in radian and is called parallactic angle.

U N Swamy, Lecturer in Physics, GPUC Aranakatte, Hiriyur Taluk Page | 3