Physics 101

Lecture 1
Units

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ali ÖVGÜN

EMU Physics Department
 Course Information:
Instructor
❑ Instructor: Ali Övgün
❑ Office: AS 246 ( Arts and Sciences Faculty)
❑ Office hour: To be announced (LMS). Other
time by appointment
❑ Email: [email protected]
❑ Website:
https://staff.emu.edu.tr/aliovgun/en
 Course Information:
❑ Participation to laboratory:
PHYSICS 1 LAB OR TUTORIAL (MONDAY 12:30-14:30)
Note that students who do not attend at least three lab
sessions will automatically get NG.
❑ All students must attend the Lab-exam!
❑ 1. Overall Attendance to the classes <
50% will lead automatically to the
grade NG. All repeating students who
fulfilled the attendance requirement of
a course once, i.e., whose previous
grade is not NG / W are exempted from
the attendance requirement.
❑ 2. Laboratory Participation < 3 will lead
automatically to the grade NG.
❑ 3. Missing any 2 two exams will lead
automatically to the grade NG.
January 22-25, 2013
COURSE SCHEDULE
❑ 1st Week Chapter 1 – Units
❑ 2nd Week Chapter 3 – Vectors
❑ 3rd Week Chapter 2 – Motion Along Straight Line
❑ 4th Week Chapter 4 – Motion in 2D and 3D (Projectile Motion)
❑ 5th Week Chapter 5,6 – Force & Motion and Circular Motion
❑ Midterm 1
❑ 6th Week Chapter 7 – Kinetic Energy and Work
❑ 7th Week Chapter 8 – Conservation of Energy
❑ 8th Week Chapter 9 – Linear Momentum
❑ 9th Week Chapter 10– Rotation
❑ 10th Week Chapter 11– Torque
❑ 11th Week Chapter 12 – Equilibrium
❑ 12th Week Chapter 13 – Angular Momentum
❑ 13th Week Review
❑ 14th Week Finals
(credit: modification of work by S. Beckwith (STScI) Hubble Heritage Team, (STScI/AURA), ESA,
NASA)
January 22-25, 2013
Physics

January 22-25, 2013

January 22-25, 2013
 Physics and Mechanics

❑ Physics deals with the nature and properties of

matter and energy.
❑ Common language is mathematics.
❑ Physics is based on experimental observations and
quantitative measurements.
 Classical Mechanics
❑ Classical mechanics deals with the motion of objects
❑ Classical Mechanics: Theory that predicts qualitatively &
quantitatively the results of experiments for objects that
are NOT
◼ Too small: atoms and subatomic particles – Quantum
Mechanics
◼ Too fast: objects close to the speed of light – Special Relativity
◼ Too dense: black holes, the early Universe – General Relativity
❑ Classical mechanics concerns the motion of objects that
are large relative to atoms and move at speeds much
slower than the speed of light (i.e. nearly everything!)

January 22-25, 2013

 Introduction
❑ Physics 101 – Course
Information
❑ Brief Introduction to Physics
❑ Chapter 1 – Measurements
(sect. 1-6)
◼ Measuring things
◼ Three basic units: Length, Mass,
Time
◼ SI units
◼ Unit conversion
◼ Dimension
January 22-25, 2013
 Chapter 1 Measurement
❑ To be quantitative in Physics requires measurements
❑ How tall is Ming Yao? How about
his weight?
◼ Height: 2.29 m (7 ft 6 in)

◼ Weight: 141 kg (310 lb)

❑ Number + Unit

◼ “thickness is 10.” has no physical meaning

◼ Both numbers and units necessary for
any meaningful physical quantities

January 22-25, 2013

 Type Quantities
❑ Many things can be measured: distance, speed,
energy, time, force ……
❑ These are related to one another: speed =
distance / time
❑ Choose three basic quantities (DIMENSIONS):
◼ LENGTH
◼ MASS
◼ TIME
❑ Define other units in terms of these.

January 22-25, 2013

 SI Unit for 3 Basic
Quantities
❑ Many possible choices for units of Length,
Mass, Time (e.g. Yao is 2.29 m or 7 ft 6 in)
❑ In 1960, standards bodies control and define
Système Internationale (SI) unit as,

◼ LENGTH: Meter
◼ MASS: Kilogram
◼ TIME: Second

January 22-25, 2013

Fundamental Quantities and SI Units
Length meter m

Mass kilogram kg

Time second s

Electric Current ampere A

Thermodynamic Temperature kelvin K

Luminous Intensity candela cd

Amount of Substance mole mol

January 22-25, 2013

 Why should we care about units?

❑ Mars Polar Lander and

Deep Space 2 were lost
at arrival December 3,
1999.

❑ The peer review

preliminary findings
indicate that one team
used English units (e.g.,
inches, feet and pounds)
while the other used
metric units for a key
spacecraft operation.
January 22-25, 2013
SI Length Unit: Meter

January 22-25, 2013

 SI Time Unit: Second

❑ 1 Second is defined in terms of an “atomic clock”– time

taken for 9,192,631,770 oscillations of the light emitted
by a 133Cs atom.
❑ Defining units precisely is a science (important, for
example, for GPS):
◼ This clock will neither gain nor lose a second in 20 million years.
January 22-25, 2013
 SI Mass Unit: Kilogram
❑ From 1795–2018 it was defined to be the
mass of a platinum–iridium cylinder kept
with the old meter standard at the
International Bureau of Weights and
Measures near Paris. However, this
cylinder has lost roughly 50 micrograms
since it was created.
❑ Because this is the standard, this has
shifted how we defined a kilogram.
Therefore, a new definition was adopted
in May 2019 based on the Planck constant
and other constants which will never
change in value
January 22-25, 2013
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 Prefixes for SI Units
❑ 3,000 m = 3 * 1,000 m 10x Prefix Symbol
= 3 * 103 m = 3 km x=18 exa E
❑ 1,000,000,000 = 109 = 1G
15 peta P
❑ 1,000,000 = 106 = 1M
12 tera T
❑ 1,000 = 103 = 1k
9 giga G
❑ 141 kg = ? g 6 mega M
❑ 1 GB = ? Byte = ? MB 3 kilo k
2 hecto h
1 deca da
January 22-25, 2013
 Prefixes for SI Units
10x Prefix Symbol ❑ 0.003 s = 3 * 0.001 s
x=-1 deci d = 3 * 10-3 s = 3 ms
-2 ❑ 0.01 = 10-2 = centi
centi c
❑ 0.001 = 10-3 = milli
-3 milli m ❑ 0.000 001 = 10-6 = micro
-6 micro µ ❑ 0.000 000 001 = 10-9 = nano
-9 nano n ❑ 0.000 000 000 001 = 10-12
-12 pico p = pico = p
❑ 1 nm = ? m = ? cm
-15 femto f
❑ 3 cm = ? m = ? mm
-18 atto a
January 22-25, 2013
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 Derived Quantities and
Units
❑ Multiply and divide units just like numbers
❑ Derived quantities: area, speed, volume, density ……
◼ Area = Length * Length SI unit for area = m2
◼ Volume = Length * Length * Length SI unit for volume = m3
◼ Speed = Length / time SI unit for speed = m/s
◼ Density = Mass / Volume SI unit for density = kg/m3

❑ In 2008 Olympic Game, Usain Bolt sets world record at

9.69 s in Men’s 100 m Final. What is his average speed ?
100 m 100 m
speed = =  = 10.32 m/s
9.69 s 9.69 s
January 22-25, 2013
 Other Unit System
❑ U.S. customary system: foot, slug, second
❑ Cgs system: cm, gram, second
❑ We will use SI units in this course, but it is useful to
know conversions between systems.
◼ 1 mile = 1609 m = 1.609 km 1 ft = 0.3048 m = 30.48 cm
◼ 1 m = 39.37 in. = 3.281 ft 1 in. = 0.0254 m = 2.54 cm
◼ 1 lb = 0.465 kg 1 oz = 28.35 g 1 slug = 14.59 kg
◼ 1 day = 24 hours = 24 * 60 minutes = 24 * 60 * 60 seconds

◼ Cgs= The centimetre–gram–second system

January 22-25, 2013

Unit Conversion

January 22-25, 2013

Unit Conversion
 Dimensions, Units and
Equations
❑ Quantities have dimensions:
◼ Length – L, Mass – M, and Time - T

❑ Quantities have units: Length – m, Mass – kg,

Time – s
❑ To refer to the dimension of a quantity, use
square brackets, e.g. [F] means dimensions of
force.
Quantity Area Volume Speed Acceleration
Dimension [A] = L2 [V] = L3 [v] = L/T [a] = L/T2
SI Units m2 m3 m/s m/s2
January 22-25, 2013
 Dimensional Analysis
❑ Necessary either to derive a math expression, or equation
or to check its correctness.
❑ Quantities can be added/subtracted only if they have the
same dimensions.
❑ The terms of both sides of an equation must have the
same dimensions.
Ex:

January 22-25, 2013

Ex:
◼ a, b, and c have units of meters, s = a, what is [s] ?
◼ a, b, and c have units of meters, s = a + b, what is [s] ?
◼ a, b, and c have units of meters, s = (2a + b)b, what is [s] ?
◼ a, b, and c have units of meters, s = (a + b)3/c, what is [s] ?
◼ a, b, and c have units of meters, s = (3a + 4b)1/2/9c2, what is [s] ?

January 22-25, 2013

Ex:

January 22-25, 2013

Ex:
2.3 miles -> cm?
1 mile=5,280 ft , 1ft=12 in , 1 in=2.54
cm
 Summary
❑ The three fundamental physical dimensions of
mechanics are length, mass and time, which in the SI
system have the units meter (m), kilogram (kg), and
second (s), respectively
❑ The method of dimensional analysis is very powerful in
solving physics problems.
❑ Units in physics equations must always be consistent.
Converting units is a matter of multiplying the given
quantity by a fraction, with one unit in the numerator
and its equivalent in the other units in the denominator,
arranged so the unwanted units in the given quantity
are cancelled out in favor of the desired units.
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❑ Example 1:

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❑ Example 2:

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❑ Example 3:

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❑ Example 4:

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❑ Example 5:

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❑ Example 6:

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❑ Example 7:

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❑ Example 8:

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❑ Example 9:

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❑ Example 10:

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1 mile = 1609 m
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