St.

Bernadette College of Valenzuela

#6121 Gen. T. De Leon, Valenzuela City
Senior High School Department
STUDY GUIDE in GENERAL PHYSICS 1
Prepared by: Mrs. Monique D. Hije

General Physics 1: The Physics of Point Particles

Unit 1 – Measurement
We deal with measurements on a daily basis as it relates to things like highway speed
restrictions, the amount of time spent driving, the quantity of groceries, and the size of the paper
used in classes. It is crucial in a variety of industries, including manufacturing, engineering, and
commerce. Additionally, it is frequently employed in science to provide numerical evidence in
support of hypotheses. A reference standard is necessary for these large measuring applications.
When determining the length of an
object, you might have used
different bodily parts, such as your
forearm, hand, or foot. The
Egyptians and the Babylonians had
employed a similar technique. The
length and size of the
aforementioned anatomical parts,
however, differ from person to
person. This could lead to a variety
of outcomes and possibly be the
cause of disagreements.

OBJECTIVES:
At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:
● Differentiate the various systems and units of measurement;
● Explain the standard of Measurement for length, mass and time;
● Solve measurement problems involving conversion of units and
● Express measurements in scientific notation.

LEARN ABOUT IT!

By comparing an object to a standard, measurement is the process of giving a number to
describe a property of the thing. Measurement is made up of a number and a unit. For example,

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the length of a table is 2 meters long. To have accurate measurements, you must make sure that
both the number and the unit are correct.
LESSON 1.1. SYSTEMS OF MEASUREMENTS
The system of units used by scientists and engineers around the world is
commonly called the metric system . In 1960, an international committee agreed on
a standard system of measurement for the fundamental quantities. It is called
International System or SI , an abbreviation for its French name, Système International
. The SI base units are listed in the Table below.

Physical Quantity Unit Name Symbol

Mass kilogram kg
Length meter m
Time second s
Amount of substance mole mol
Temperature kelvin K
Electric current ampere A
Luminous intensity candela cd

UNIT PREFIXES

A prefix is a letter or group of letters added at the beginning of the base word to change its
meaning. In measurement, a unit prefix or metric prefix can be used to make a unit larger or
smaller that the base unit.

Power Prefix Abbreviation Meaning Example

10−9 nano n 1/1 000 000 000 1 nanometer = 0.000000001

meter
10−6 micro μ 1/1 000 000 1 micrometer = 0.000001
meter
10−3 milli m 1/1 000 1 millimeter = 0.001 meter
10−2 centi c 1/100 1 centimeter = 0.01 meter
10−1 deci d 1/10 1 decimeter = 0.1 meter
1 1 meter
103 kilo k 1000 1 kilometer = 1 000 meter
106 mega M 1 000 000 1 megameter = 1 000 000
meter
109 giga G 1 000 000 000 1 gigameter = 1000 000 000
meter
1012 tera T 1 000 000 000 000 1 terameter = 1 000 000 000
000 meter

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DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS
Many problems in Physics require the conversion of one unit of measurement to another. This
technique of converting between units is called dimensional analysis.
The starting point for dimensional analysis is unit equality. A unit equality or conversion
factor is an equation that shows the equivalent amount or different units. Some important unit
equalities are given in the table.

UNIT EQUIVALENT UNIT EQUIVALENT UNIT EQUIVALENT

UNIT UNIT UNIT
1 inch (in) 2.54 1 atmosphere 101 325 1 slug 14.54 kg
centimeters (1 atm) pascals (Pa)
(cm)
1 gallon (gal) 3.785 liters 1 foot (ft) 12 in 1 newton (N) 0.2248 lb
(L)
1 calorie (cal) 4.284 joules 1 mile (mi) 5 280 ft 1 electronvolt 1.602 x 10-19
(J) (eV) J

Let’s Practice!

Example 1: How many centimeters are there in 5.0 inches?

1 inch = 2.54 cm
Solution:

Example 2: Suppose you want to convert 55 meters to kilometers. Since it is in the metric system,
you can refer to Table for the prefixes where 1 kilometer is equal to 103 meters. The conversion is
as follows.

Solution:

Most of the time, several conversion factors are needed to complete a unit conversion.
Presented here are some examples.

Example 3: How many inches are there in 12 m?

Solution: You can see from the given tables that there is no direct conversion from inches to
meters. You may relate inches to centimeters by first converting the metric quantities.

1 in = 2.54 cm
100 cm = 1 m
From these, you can list the following conversion factors:
1 𝑖𝑛 2.54 𝑐𝑚
2.54 𝑐𝑚
and 1 𝑖𝑛

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 100 𝑐𝑚 1𝑚
1𝑚
and 100 𝑐𝑚

Using the appropriate conversion factor, the solution for the problem is as follows.
12 𝑚 (
100 𝑐𝑚
1𝑚 )(1 𝑖𝑛
2.54 𝑐𝑚 )
= 472. 44 𝑖𝑛

There are 472.44 in for every 12 m.

Example 4: A three-story building is 10 feet tall. How high is it in meters?

Solution :
1 ft = 30.48 cm
1 cm = 10-2 m
Using the appropriate conversion factor, the solution for the problem is as follows.
( 30.48
)
10 𝑓𝑡 1 𝑓𝑡 = 304. 8 𝑐𝑚

304. 8 𝑐𝑚 ( 10−2 𝑚
1 𝑐𝑚 )= 3. 048 𝑚

The building is 3.048 m high.

Let’s Check In!

Answer the following questions.
1. Why are the ancient methods of measurement not reliable?

2. What are the advantages of knowing how to convert one unit of measure to another? Cite
one instance.

3. What other importance of measurements are applicable in real life situations?

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CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING!

Answer the following questions. Show your Solutions.

1. A three-story building is 52 feet tall. How high is it in meters?

2. A common housefly is 5.0 mm long. How long is it in meters?

3. Use the dimensional analysis (unit conversion, factor label) problem-solving method to
answer the following questions.
a. How many nickels would you get for a twenty dollar bill?

b. How many hours are in a week?

c. How many revolutions does the hour hand on a clock make in a year?

4. The units of the chain system of measure, used by surveyors, are as follows:

● 7.92 inches = 1 link

● 100 links = 1 chain
● 10 chains = 1 furlong
● 80 chains = 1 mile
The distance of the Kentucky Derby, a classic horse race, is 1.25 miles. How is this distance
expressed in furlongs?

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 LESSON 1.2 SCIENTIFIC NOTATION
Very large and very small numbers can be expressed using scientific notation​,
sometimes called p
​ owers-of-10 notation​.

Scientific Notation Rules

To determine the power or exponent of 10, we must follow the rule listed below:
● The base should be always 10
● The exponent must be a non-zero integer, that means it can be either positive or
negative
● 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
● The mantissa carries the rest of the significant digits of the number

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.

1. 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 × 103 is in scientific notation.
2. 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.
Example:
0.006 = 6 × 0.001 = 6 × 10-3 is in scientific notation.

Scientific Notation Examples

The examples of scientific notation are:
490000000 = 4.9×108
1230000000 = 1.23×109
50500000 = 5.05 x 107
0.000000097 = 9.7 x 10-8
0.0000212 = 2.12 x 10-5

Positive and Negative Exponent

When the scientific notation of any large numbers is expressed, then we use positive
exponents for base 10.
For example:
20000 = 2 x 104, where 4 is the positive exponent.

When the scientific notation of any small numbers is expressed, then we use negative
exponents for base 10.
For example:
0.0002 = 2 x 10-4, where -4 is the negative exponent.

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 From the above, we can say that the number greater than 1 can be written as the expression
with positive exponent, whereas the numbers less than 1 with negative exponent.

Let’s Practice!
Question 1:
Convert 0.00000046 into scientific notation.

Solution:
Move the decimal point to the right of 0.00000046 up to 7 places.

The decimal point was moved 7 places to the right to form the number 4.6

Since the numbers are less than 10 and the decimal is moved to the right. Hence, we use a
negative exponent here.

⇒ 0.00000046 = 4.6 × 10-7

This is the scientific notation.

Question 2:
Convert 301000000 in scientific notation.

Solution: Move the decimal to the left 8 places so it is positioned to the right of the leftmost
non zero digits 3.01000000. Remove all the zeroes and multiply the number by 10.

Now the number has become = 3.01.

Since the number is greater than 10 and the decimal is moved to left, therefore, we use here
a positive exponent.

Hence, 3.01 × 108 is the scientific notation of the number.

Question 3:
Convert 1.36 × 107 from scientific notation to standard notation.

Solution: Given, 1.36 × 107 in scientific notation.

Exponent = 7

Since the exponent is positive we need to move the decimal place 7 places to the right.

Therefore,

1.36 × 107 = 1.36 × 10000000 = 13 600 000.

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CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING!
Problem 1: Convert the following numbers into scientific notation.

1. 28100000
2. 7890000000
3. 0.00000542
4. 0.0002077
5. 0.1588

Problem 2: Convert the following into standard form.

1. 3.5 × 105
2. 2.89 × 10-6
3. 9.8 × 10-2
4. 1.588×10-1
5. 3.868×109

REFERENCES
● https://johnmanders.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/measuring-length-in-ancient-egypt/
● https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_Chemistry/Introductory_Chemistry_(CK-12)/03%3A_Mea
surements/3.02%3A_Metric_Prefixes
● https://extension.psu.edu/conversion-factors-for-english-and-si-metric-units
● https://chem.libretexts.org/Courses/University_of_California_Santa_Cruz/UCSC%3A_Chem_1B-AL_(Mednick)/W
orksheets%3A_General_Chemistry/Unit_Conversion_and_Dimensional_Analysis_(Workshop)/Dimenstional_Anal
ysis%3A_Worksheet_1
● https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NTN4kEOPv1MN2tas6DJMW_SYx3sLj81o/edit
● https://byjus.com/maths/scientific-notation/
● General Physics 1(Second Edition) – DIWA Textbooks pp. 3-18

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