Maths and basic electricity

There are seven fundamental units, and of these, only five are necessary for us to consider.

These units are:- Mass; Length; Time; Electric current; Absolute temperature. Each of these units has a symbol and this should not be confused with the unit name itself. This will become more apparent as they are used in formulae and equations. Below is a Table showing the five fundamental units, their symbols and names.

There are many more derived units, such as magnetic flux, potential difference, velocity, resistance etc. but again these will be introduced in the study books later. To allow more convenient use of these units; prefixes are used to describe the quantity or size of the unit. In the diagram below most of the common engineering multiples

There are more prefixes than these shown in Figure 1, but these are the most commonly used in engineering. It is important that you are familiar with these terms. Follow the examples and then try some for yourself.

Note that the common thing is that they are all based on the power 10. This is usually written as:-

Notice how easy it is to change the decimal point and to add the power or to use the prefix (Remember that the prefix is the letter used to signify the amount. Look on the previous page). A number written with one digit (one and only one digit) to the left of the decimal point, multiplied by ten which is then raised to some power is said to be written in standard form.

Notice that I have used only one digit. The number of decimal points moved is the number used for the index. If the decimal point is moved towards the right then we have a negative number, and if we move it to the left, we have a positive index. Don=get confused between standard form and the prefixes and numbers that we use in t engineering. With standard form, we have only one number in front of the decimal point. With engineering form, we often have more than one number in front of the decimal point. On the previous page, we looked at some basic standard form conversions. These are less commonly used in an engineering context. We normally make use of the engineers variant which bases everything on multiples of 1000: look at Figure 1 on an earlier page. Lets have a look at a few more examples.

With each of the examples shown, convert the number to its whole number.

Remember that each of the prefixes, the letters, have a meaning. Familiarity comes with practice. It may be a good idea to get into the habit of writing out the table of values each time you come to a session as a revision aid. However, try the following examples, and complete the table.

These are by far the most commonly used letters and names. Get into the habit of labeling things properly.

Well now have a brief review of what you have covered, and what you should have learnt. Summary You know the fundamental s.i. units. You know that s.i. units are used to provide a common basis. You know the common engineering multiples and are able to use them. You can recognise the difference between standard form and engineering standard form.