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Basic Concepts of Chemistry

This document discusses basic concepts of chemistry including measurements, SI units, and precision. It describes physical quantities that are measured, such as mass, volume, temperature, and pressure. It outlines the seven base SI units including meter, second, kilogram, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela. Derived and subsidiary units are also discussed.

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Atanu Sarkar
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23 views3 pages

Basic Concepts of Chemistry

This document discusses basic concepts of chemistry including measurements, SI units, and precision. It describes physical quantities that are measured, such as mass, volume, temperature, and pressure. It outlines the seven base SI units including meter, second, kilogram, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela. Derived and subsidiary units are also discussed.

Uploaded by

Atanu Sarkar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Basic concepts of Chemistry

Measurements in Chemistry:
During scientific studies in addition to the measurements of mass, volumes and lengths, we
come across the measurement of a number of other quantities such as temperature, pressure,
concentration, force, work, density etc.

All such quantities which we come across during our scientific studies are called physical
quantities. Evidently, the measurement of any physical quantity consists of two parts: (i) the
number, and (ii) the unit. For example, if an object weighs 4.5 kg, it involves two parts: (i)
4.5 i.e. the number and (ii) kg i.e. the unit. Thus the main aims of this section are:

i. To see how accurately or precisely the number has been expressed i.e. concept of
significant figures.
ii. To study the units of measurements i.e. the S.I. units.
iii. To derive the units of any physical quantity and to check the accuracy of any
scientific equation by seeing that the dimensions of both sides of the equation are
same i.e. concept of dimensional analysis.

SI Units:
A unit is defined as the standard of reference chosen to measure any physical quantity.

French Academy of Science, in 1791, introduced a new system of measurements called


'metric system' in which the different units of a physical quantity are related to each other
as multiples of powers of 10, e.g. 1 km: 103 m, 1 cm: 10-2 m etc. This system was found to
be so convenient that scientists all over the world immediately adopted this system for
reporting scientific data and gradually most of the countries have also switched over to
this system for measurements of everyday use. India started following metric system
since 1,957. The metric system, was further improved by the General Conference of
Weights and Measures (Conference Generale des Poids et Mesures, CGPM) which met in
October 1960 in France. The improved system of units has been accepted internationally
and is called International System of Units or in short SI Units (for Systeme
Internationale in French. With greater accuracy in measurement, the 'unit' definitions and
hence the system of units is improved from time to time. To maintain uniformity all over
the world, each nation has National Metrology Institute (I.[MI). ln India, this
responsibility has been assigned to National Physical Laboratory (NPL), New Delhi.

Seven Basic Units: The seven basic physical quantities on which the International System
of Units is based, their symbols, the names of their units (called the base units) and the
symbols of these units are given in Table 1.1.

TABLE 1.1. Seven basic physical quantities and their SI unit

Physical
Symbol SI Unit Symbol
Quantity
Length l Metre m
Time t Sec s
Mass m Kilogram kg
Electric Current I Ampere A
Thermodynamic
T Kelvin K
Temperature
Amount of
n Mole mol
Substance
Luminous Intensity Iv Candela cd

Derived units: The units of all other physical quantities arc derived out of those of the
basic physical quantities. The units thus obtained are called the derived units.

Subsidiary units: Quite often we require units that may be multiples or fractions of the
base units. The SI system recommends the multiples such as 103, 106, 109 etc. and
fractions such as 10-3, 10-6, 10-9 etc. i.e. the powers that are multiple of 3. These are
indicated by special prefixes. These along with some other fractions or multiples in
common use, along with their prefixes are given in table 1.3 below.

Precision and Significant Figures:


Difference between Precision and Accuracy: many scientific measurements involving some
measuring devices cannot be known accurately. The accuracy of any such measurement
depends upon

i. the accuracy of the measuring device used


ii. the skill of its operator

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