“Measurement”

“General Physics”

Physics
 The study of nature, the understanding of its phenomena and how it behaves

Why study Physics?

 It inspires young people and expands the frontiers of our knowledge about nature.
 It generates fundamental knowledge needed for the future technological advances that will continue to
drive the economic engines of the world.
 It contributes to the technological infrastructure.
 It is an important element in the education of chemists, engineers and computer scientists, as well as
practitioners of the other physical and biomedical sciences.
 It extends and enhances our understanding of other disciplines.
 Helps in developing new instrumentation and techniques for medical applications.

Units, Conversion and Scientific Notation

Physical Quantities
 Have a numerical value (a number) and a unit of Example:
measurement. 2 kilograms of bananas
Numerical Value: 2
Unit: kilograms

International System of Units or SI

( Le Systeme Internationale d’Unités in French )
 The most widely used set of units by scientist that defines a measurement.
Unit Prefixes
 Are symbols placed before the symbol of a unit to specify the order of magnitude of a quantity.

Conversion of Units

Rounding off numbers

Rules:
Examples:
1. Know which last digit to keep.
2. This last digit remains the same if Round off to the nearest tenths.
the next digit is less than 5. 3.1416 = 3.1
3. Increase this last digit if the next
digit is 5 or more. 8.381 = 8.4
67.47 = 67.5
314 234 = 314 230

5 567 = 5 570

245 = 250
Scientific Notation
 is a way of expressing numbers that are too big or too small to be conveniently written in decimal
form

Examples:
23 400 000 - 2.234 x 107
0.002345 - 2.345 x 10-3

Accuracy, Precision, and Errors in

Measurement

Accuracy vs. Precision

1. Accuracy
 closeness of the measurements to
a specific value
2. Precision
 closeness of the measurements to
each other

Forms of Errors
Random Errors
 Variations in the measured data brought by the limitations of the measuring device or as a result of
difficulty taking measurements.
Systematic Errors
• Usually come from the measuring instruments. They may occur because there is something wrong
with the instrument or its data handling system, or due to problems with the calibration.
Causes of Error in Doing Physics Laboratory Experiments:
1. Inadequate definition.
2. Unable to include a factor.
3. Factors due to environment.
4. Limited scale of the instrument.
5. Unable to calibrate or check zero scale of the instrument.
6. Variations in the physical measurement.
7. Parallax - whenever an experimenter’s eye is not aligned with a pointer
8. Personal errors - carelessness, poor method, or bias measurement from the experimenter

Approximating Uncertainty
1. Use the mean or sum of measurements/number of observations.

Examples: measuring the width of a piece of paper

Measured width (cm)

Mean=(X1+X2+X3+X4+X5)/5
=31.19 cm

2.
Standard
Deviation - a mathematical way to characterize the spread of a set of data.

Average/mean: X= 31.19 cm Average deviation: X= 0.086 cm

√ (0.14)2 +( 0.04)2+(0.07)2 +( 0.041)2

SD = x=
5−1
= 0.12 cm