Significant Figures and Unit Conversion
Significant Figures and Unit Conversion
1. Significant figures
Before getting into anything else, I would first like you to look at the rules of significant
figures
2. Multiplication/Division/Addition/Substraction rule
3. Units
Height, H = 2m
Length, L = 1m
Width, W = 3m
Volume of the box, V
V = HLW
= (2 ∗ 1 ∗ 3) ∗ (m ∗ m ∗ m)
= 6 ∗ m3
6m3
The above one is a simple example. But we can use the same trick for any
complecated problems. The idea is to do the same mathematical operation on units
also.
= 2 ∗ 102 ∗ 1 ∗ 102 ∗ 3 ∗ (m ∗ m ∗ m)
= 60000 ∗ m3
60000m3
This is applicable for all prefixes in the table given below.
Width, W = 3 ∗ 10−2 hm
Thus the volume of the box, V
V = HLW
= 6 ∗ 10−2 hm3
3.2.2. Unit conversion Above I have explained how to convert units, if it is given a
different system of units, which we can identify by looking at prefixes. But there are
some other systems, which we can’t detect by prefixes. But that is also simple. Just
look at the appendix of any stadard textbooks to get conversion factor. I can explain it
through an example below.
EX:
Find out the speed given by 10mi/h in m/s
ANS:
Here we need to write two conversion factors. One for miles(unit of length) and the
other for hour(unit of time).
1mi = 1609m
1h = 60 ∗ 60s = 3600s
(Look at the Appendix C of Essential University physics Vol 1)
Speed = 10mi/h
= 10 ∗ 1609m/3600s
= 4.5m/s
4. Scientific notation