Units and Measurements

Science is totally based on measurements and comparisons. Not just science, measurement
also plays a significant role in our daily life is also. Any entity that we measure is known
as quantity or physical quantity. We can say, height, mass, weight, time etc are all quantities
since these can be measured. On the other hand, entities like beauty, happiness, anger are
not considered as quantity.

Now to express physical quantities, we need Units. A quantity is an amount of something,

and it consists of a number and a unit. The number and the unit together express the right
quantity. The number indicates how many (or how much), and the unit describes the scale of
measurements.

For example, when you woke up in the morning and tell your mom that you’ve slept for 6
hours. In this case, the quantity ‘Time’ is being reported as ‘6 hours’. Here the quantity has
been expressed in unit of ‘hour’ and the numerical value is ‘6’.

Physical quantities are expressed as,

Physicalquantity(Q)=Magnitude×Unit=n×u

Where, n represents the numerical value and u represents the unit.

A quantity can be expressed as different units. For example, you have bought a fish of ‘1
kilogram’ from market but the mass of the fish can be also reported as ‘1000 gram’, and both
of these represents the mass of the same fish. Kilogram is a larger unit compared to gram,
that’s why while using kilogram (larger unit), the numerical value decreases.

So, when expressing a quantity in different units, we can say, as the unit (u) changes, the
magnitude (n) will also change but product ‘nu’ will remain same. Means,

n1u1=n2u2=constant
​ ​ ​ ​

⇒nu=constant

Fundamental & Derived Quantities & Their Units

Quantities are primarily divided into two categories – (i) Base quantity or Fundamental
quantity & (ii) Derived quantity. Mass, length time etc are fundamental quantities. The
derived quantities are obtained from more than one measurement, area, density etc are
derived quantities. To obtain area, first we need length and width measurement, to obtain
density we need to measure mass and volume.

Units required to express fundamental quantities are called fundamental units. On the other
hand, the units for expressing derived quantities are called derived units. The derived units
are the combination of fundamental units.

The International System of Units

System of Units

Fundamental and Derived units together form a System of Units. A complete set of units,
both fundamental and derived for all kinds of physical quantities is called system of units.

In earlier times we had three different system of units that were being used, as

CGS system: Contain three fundamental units; centimetre, gram & second and other
derived units. The name of the system CGS came from Centimetre-Gram-Second.
MKS system: This system also contain three fundamental units; meter, kilogram & second.
There are also some other derived units.
FPS system: This system of unit was being used by British, and also known as British
system of units. It also contains three fundamental units; foot, pound & second.

All of the three systems of units have their disadvantages, for example, the conversion
between units in FPS system is very hectic. Using different units systems in different parts of
the world is also created problems, and soon we find a need of system of unit that can be
accepted worldwide.

The system of units which is at present internationally accepted for measurement is

the Système Internationale d’ Unites (French for International System of Units), abbreviated
as SI units.

SI units use decimal system, and the conversion between units is easy and very
convenient.
SI unit system is based on 7 fundamental units, 2 supplementary units and other derived
units.
 Base Unit Unit’s
Quantity Abbreviat
ion
( b l)
Length metre m

Mass kilogram kg

Time second s

Electric ampere A
Current

Temperat kelvin K
ure

Amount mole mol

of
Substanc
e

Luminous candela cd
 Intensity

Besides the seven base units, there are two more supplementary units that are defined
for Plane angle (dθ as the ratio of length of arc ds to the radius R) and Solid angle (dΩ as the
ratio of the intercepted area dA of the spherical surface, described about the apex O as the
centre, to the square of its radius R) as shown in the following figure.

Plane angle, dθ=Rds ​

Solid angle, dΩ=R2dA ​

The unit for plane angle is radian with the symbol ‘rad’ and the unit for the solid angle
is steradian with the symbol ‘sr’. Both ‘Plane angle’ and ‘Solid angle’ are dimensionless
quantities.

Definitions of the SI Units

For every unit system, we must have standard values of the base units. For example, in SI
system, we measure length in meter unit. So, we must have a fix value of 1 meter with respect
to other length measurements can be done. The same goes for other base quantities. That’s
the reason, the defined values of the base units are important.

In earlier times, for units like meter, kilogram we had international prototypes of a 1
meter rod, 1 kilogram of mass which were considered as the absolute value of these unis. But
these values are not absolute, for example the length of that rod can change with the change
of temperature, the mass of the prototype can change over times due to the reaction with
another element. Even after knowing this, we were using the prototypes as standards over 50
years because we didn’t have any other ways of how to fix this, but then Sir Maxwell came to
rescue.
Maxwell told that “If…we wish to obtain standards of length, time and mass which shall be
absolutely permanent, we must seek them not in the dimensions, or the motion, or the mass
of our planet, but in the wavelength, the period of vibration, and the absolute mass of these
imperishable and unalterable and perfectly similar molecules.”

On the basis of that we were able to fix the standard values, and defined them. The definition
of the 7 fundamental units are given below.

Second: The second, is the SI unit of time. It is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of
the cesium frequency ΔνCs, the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of
​

the cesium 133 atom, to be 9192631770 when expressed in the unit Hz (which is equal to s−1).

Meter: The meter, is the SI unit of length. It is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of
the speed of light in vacuum c to be 299792458 when expressed in the unit m/s, where the
second is defined in terms of ΔνCs. ​

Kilogram: The kilogram, is the SI unit of mass. It is defined by taking the fixed numerical value
of the Planck constant h to be 6.62607015×10−34 when expressed in the unit J.s (which is
equal to kgm2/s), where the meter and the second are defined in terms of c and ΔνCs. ​

Ampere: The ampere, is the SI unit of electric current. It is defined by taking the fixed
numerical value of the elementary charge e to be 1.602176634×10−19 when expressed in the
unit C (which is equal to A.s), where the second is defined in terms of ΔνCs. ​

Kelvin: The kelvin, is the SI unit of thermodynamic temperature. It is defined by taking the
fixed numerical value of the Boltzmann constant k to be 1.380469×10−23 when expressed in
the unit J/K (which is equal to kg.m2/s2K), where the kilogram, meter and second are defined
in terms of h, c and ΔνCs. ​

Mole: The mole, is the SI unit of amount of substance. One mole contains
exactly 6.02214076×1023 elementary entities. This number is the fixed numerical value of the
Avogadro constant, NA, when expressed in the unit mol−1 and is called the Avogadro number.
​

The amount of substance (symbol n), of a system is a measure of the number of specified
elementary entities. An elementary entity may be an atom, a molecule, an ion, an electron,
any other particle or specified group of particles.
Candela: The candela, is the SI unit of luminous intensity in a given direction. It is defined by
taking the fixed numerical value of the luminous efficacy of monochromatic radiation of
frequency 540×1012 Hz, Kcd, to be 683 when expressed in the unit lm/W (which is equal to
cd.sr/W, or cd.sr.s3/ kg.m2), where the kilogram, meter and second are defined in terms
of h, c and ΔνCs.
​

Fundamental Quantities aren’t Always Fundamental from Fundamental Sense

You must have noticed that electric current has been chosen as fundamental quantity
over electrical charge, while electrical charge would have been more fundamental quantity.

The reason is, it is hard to measure electrical charge directly, and we don’t have any
instruments that can measure electrical charge directly. To measure electrical charge, we
always resort to indirect methods. On the other hand, electrical current can be measured
directly and quite easily with the help of ammeter.

So, what we can say is, the fundamental quantities are chosen to be fundamental based on if
they can be easily and directly measured or not.

Similarly, luminous intensity is another example. Luminosity is more fundamental, it’s the
energy emitted per unit time, but difficult to measure. Luminous intensity which is luminosity
per solid angle is much easier to measure, and thus became fundamental quantity.

Rules for Using the abbreviation (symbol) of SI units

To avoid the confusion of using the symbols of units, there are some rules. The rules are given
as follows.

Use a space between the number and the unit symbol. For example, “10 m”, not “10m”.
SI has a set of prefixes that indicate different powers of 10. For example, kilo (103) with
prefix ‘k’, milli (10-3) with prefix ‘m’. Unit kilometre is written as ‘km’ and millimetre as
‘mm’. Don’t use space between prefix and unit. The prefix symbols greater than “kilo” are
capitalized, for example mega (106) with prefix ‘M’, giga (109) with prefix ‘G’ etc
Use one prefix at a time. For example, “109 m” can be written as “106 km” or “103 Mm”, as
well as “1 Gm”. However, never write “1 Mkm” or “1 kMm”.
Symbols for units are capitalized when they are named after a person but not otherwise.
For example, “N” for newton but “kg” for kilogram.
Units are not capitalized, even when named after a person, when written out in full. For
example, “newton” not “Newton”. This rule prevents confusion over whether one is
referring to the person or the unit.
Unit symbols stand for both single units and multiples of the unit. Never add an “s” to
make a symbol plural. For example, “10 m” means ten metres, but “10 ms” means ten
milliseconds