Unit I:

UNITS,
MEASUREMENT
S, VECTORS
 Learning Objectives
• To assign appropriate units of the different
physical quantities.
• To describe accuracy of a measurement by
indicating the correct number of significant
figures.
• To identify the equivalent value of unit prefixes.
• To convert given measurements using the correct
conversion factor.
• To apply conversion of units and accuracy of
measurements to practical problems.
• To familiarize common SI units. Unit 1: Units and Measurements
 "I often say that when you can measure
something and express it in numbers, you
know something about it. When you
cannot measure it, when you cannot
express it in numbers, your knowledge is
of a meager and unsatisfactory kind. It
may be the beginning of knowledge, but
you have scarcely in your thoughts
advanced to the stage of science,
whatever it may be.”
lord kelvin
 Mathematics
-Language of Science
“The equations are guides to thinking that
show the connections between concepts
in nature. The methods of mathematics
and
experimentation led to enormous success
in science.”
 Physical Quantity
 Physical quantity is a physical property of a
phenomenon, body or substance that can be
quantified or measured.
 BASIC DERIVED
QUANTITY QUANTITY
can be measured and can be calculated from other measureable
define only by describing how quantities.
there are measured.
length (meter m), speed (m/s),
mass (kilogram kg) work (Joule J | N·m | )
To specify what type of physical quantity was
being presented, units were formed.
 SIGNIFICANT FIGURES

RULES
1) Non-zero digits are always significant
2) Any zeros between two significant digits are
significant
3) For numbers with decimals, zeros to the right
of a non-zero digit are significant
4) For decimal numbers, zeros before the first
non-zero digit are NOT significant
5) Trailing zeros in a whole number are
considered NOT significant or significant
 ROUNDING-OFF NUMBERS
RULES
1) If the figure is less than 5, drop it including all figures
to the right
Example: Round 56.7645 to 4 sf
2) If the figure is more than 5, increase the preceding
figure by 1
Example: Round 6.8865 to 3 sf
3) If the figure is 5 and preceding figure is odd, round the
number to make it even
Example: Round 3.63567 to 3 sf
4) If the figure is 5 and preceding figure is zero or even,
drop it including all figures to the right.
Example: Round 4.9054 to 3 sf
UNIT PREFIXES & CONVERSION
TO easily write and understand
very large or small numbers
 ARITHMETIC WITH SF

ADDITION | SUBTRACTION
RULE: round-off the final answer with
the least number of decimal places.

MULTIPLICATION | DIVISION
RULE: round-off the final answer with
the least number of sf.
 SCIENTIFIC NOTATION

To determine the power or exponent of 10, we must follow the rule listed below:
1. The base should be always 10.
2. The exponent must be a non-zero integer, that means it can be either
positive or negative.
3. The absolute value of the coefficient is greater than or equal to 1 but it
should be less than 10 Coefficients can be positive or negative numbers
including whole and decimal numbers.
4. The mantissa (c) carries the rest of the significant digits of the number.
5. Let us understand how many places we need to move the decimal point
after the single-digit number with the help of the below representation.
 SCIENTIFIC NOTATION

• If the given number is multiples of 10 then the decimal point has

to move to the left, and the power of 10 will be positive.
 Example: 6000 = 6 × 10 is 3 in scientific notation.
• If the given number is smaller than 1, then the decimal point has to
move to the right, so the power of 10 will be negative.
-3
 Example: 0.006 = 6 × 0.001 = 6 × 10 is in scientific notation.
 ACCURACY vs. PRECISION
Accuracy refers to how close a measurement
comes to the accepted value.

Precision is how close a measurement to

other measurements
ACCURACY vs. PRECISION
Unit 2:
SCALAR & VECTOR
QUANTITY
 SCALAR vs. VECTOR
SCALAR
provides magnitude or measurement only
VECTOR
provides magnitude and direction
SCALAR VECTOR
Mass  only measure the Weight  it is a force acted by
heaviness of material gravity on the mass ( w=mg)
Ex. 5 kg of metal iron Ex. 500 N downward
*the direction of weight is
always pointing to the center of
the earth
distance displacement
speed velocity
How vector quantity plays a
very important rule in
Physics?
In experimental physics, one can describe
how fast the object is moving but giving
the exact direction of the movement will
give more interesting data.
Various description of Direction
Characteristics Properties of a Vector
1.Only parallel vectors or anti-parallel vectors
can be added or subtracted in an arithmetic
manner respectively.
2.Multiplying a vector with a scalar results in
multiplying the magnitude of that vector
while retaining the same direction.
3.Adding vectors is commutative, that is,
interchanging the addition sequence yields the
same result.
VECTOR ADDITION

1. GRAPHICAL APPROACH
i. Head-to-tail or Polygon Method
ii. Parallelogram Method
2. ANALYTICAL METHOD or
COMPONENT METHOD
VECTOR ADDITION
1. GRAPHICAL APPROACH
i. Head-to-tail or Polygon Method

Resultant Vector: Always start at

the tail of the first vector and
end at the head of the vector.
VECTOR ADDITION
1. GRAPHICAL APPROACH
i. Head-to-tail or Polygon Method

⃗ ⃗
𝑩
𝑨
30°
+¿ 40°
VECTOR ADDITION
1. GRAPHICAL APPROACH
ii. Parallelogram Method

Draw equal vectors of the

vectors being added. The
diagonal will represent the result
of vector addition.
VECTOR ADDITION
Example: Given the ff vectors below, draw the
resultant vector using polygon method and
parallelogram method.
PROBLEM SET 1 (UNIT 1.1)
I.I SIGNIFICANT FIGURES
1. How many significant figures are there in the following
quantities?
_____1.) The value of π (3.14159265358979323846)
_____2.) Avogadro’s number (6.02214129×1023 mol-1)
_____3.) Distance from the earth to moon (384,400 km)
_____4.) Area of the Philippines (3.00000x105 km)
_____5.) Speed of light in vacuum (299,792,458 m/s)
I.II ROUNDING-OFF NUMBERS
_________6.) Round 19.34 to three sf.
_________7.) Round 98.589 to four sf.
_________8.) Round 55.5555 to five sf.
_________9.) Round 12.405 to four sf.
_________10.) Round 203.4530923 to four sf.
_________11.) Round 3.10512 to three sf.
_________12.) Round 1.334351 to five sf.
_________13.) Round 22.165 to four sf.
_________14.) Round 4.279 to two sf.
_________15.) Round 0.015786 to three sf.
I.III ARITHMETIC WITH SIGNIFICANT FIGURES
16.) 4.35 + 2.000 = ____________________
17.) 98.06 - 95.212 = __________________
18.) 12.16 + 13.2 = ____________________
19.) 2.343212 - 1.3454 = _______________
20.) 2.1 x 2.12 = ______________________
21.) 378 ÷ 23 = _______________________
22.) 0.0009 x 124 = ____________________
23.) 8.13000 ÷ 0.0234 = ________________

24. Vilma is 65 years old. Express his age in

seconds.
PROBLEM SET 1 (UNIT 1.2)