1.

Measurements in Science
Learning objectives:
 State the fundamental units of the SI system.

 Be able to express numbers in scientific notation.

 Appreciate the magnitude of various quantities.

 Perform simple order-of-magnitude calculations mentally (Fermi

questions)
 Express results of calculations to the correct number of significant

figures.
Range of magnitudes of quantities in our
Universe.

What do we mean by order of magnitude?

Why do scientists make considerable effort in trying to

measure/calculate certain things, e.g. the age of the universe?

Why are scientists sometimes only interested in the nearest order of

magnitude in a measurement?
 Order of magnitude
Generally, the order of magnitude of a number is the smallest
power of 10 used to represent that number. To work out the
order of magnitude of a number, the number is first expressed in
the following scientific form:

where: , and is an integer and represents the order of

magnitude of the number.

e.g. .

So 4523 to the nearest order of magnitude is

Powers of Ten (1977)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0
The Scale of the Universe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaGEjrADGPA
Can you link the correct order of
magnitudes with the following quantities?
Diameter of a proton (m)
Diameter of the visible universe (m)
Age of the universe (s)
Time for light to travel across a nucleus of an atom (s)
Mass of an electron (kg)
Mass of the universe (kg)

10-30, 10-15, 10-23, 1018, 1025, 1053,

Orders of magnitude

Orders of Magnitude. i.e.

Calculating ratios:
How many times bigger is the diameter of a Hydrogen atom
compared to its nucleus?
Diameter of an H atom = 10-10 m,

Diameter of its nucleus = 10-15m

Hence,

If the nucleus of a Hydrogen atom was the size of a tennis ball, how
big would the Hydrogen atom be?
You should be able to estimate values of everyday quantities to 1 or 2 s.f. and
to the nearest order of magnitude.

Examples:

Size of a pea
0.8 cm
(100 cm)

Mass of a car
1000 kg
(103 kg)

Time to run a marathon (in seconds)

3 hrs = 3 x 60 x 60 = 10800 s
(104 s)
Estimate the following quantities to the
nearest order of magnitude:
 How many heartbeats are there in the lifetime of a human being?

 The interior volume of medium sized car.

 The mass of air in the interior of a medium sized car.

 The mass of Earth (radius 6380 km)

 How many Hydrogen atoms does it take to make up the mass of the
Earth?

You will need to do some research to help you answer

these questions.
How many heartbeats are there in the lifetime of a human being?

The interior volume of medium sized car:

The mass of air in the interior of a medium sized car.

The mass of Earth (radius 6380 km)

How many Hydrogen atoms does it take to make up the mass of the Earth?
Some useful orders of magnitude:
How many different units of length do you know?
Feet
Centimetre
Light year
Inch
Metre
Hands
Yard
Nautical mile
Astronomical unit
Angstrom
Planck Length
Nanometre

What do all of these units have in common?

What differences are there?
The S.I. system of fundamental and derived
units.

The SI is founded on seven SI base units for seven base quantities

assumed to be mutually independent.

SI units = International system of units.

Why is it important for scientists to have an international system for

units?
A fundamental unit cannot be expressed in simpler units.

Can you name all seven of the fundamental units?

SI base unit

Base quantity Name Symbol

length meter m
mass kilogram kg
time second s
electric current ampere A
thermodynamic temperature kelvin K
amount of substance mole mol
luminous intensity candela cd
(A-level only require you to know 6, not candela).
Find out more about the seven fundamental units at NPL. (Click link)
Each of the seven fundamental units is clearly defined.

Examples:

The metre (m). This is the unit of distance. It is the distance travelled by
light in a vacuum in a time of 1/299792458 seconds.

The kilogram (kg). This was the mass of a certain quantity of platinum-
iridium alloy kept at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures in
France.

How is the kilogram defined now?

Derived units are made up of 2 or more fundamental units.

Example: Charge = current x time Q=Ixt

So, the units of charge = As, which is known as Coulombs (C)

Can you express the derived unit Newton into fundamental units?

Force = mass x acceleration

So Force has units of kgms-2, which is known as the Newton (N)

 Table 2. Examples of SI derived units

SI derived unit

Derived quantity Name Symbol

area square meter m2
volume cubic meter m3
speed, velocity meter per second m/s
acceleration meter per second squared m/s2
mass density kilogram per cubic meter kg/m3
specific volume cubic meter per kilogram m3/kg
magnetic field strength ampere per meter A/m
amount-of-substance concentration mole per cubic meter mol/m3
luminance candela per square meter cd/m2

What is the SI unit for the derived unit of power (Watt)?

What is the SI unit for the derived unit of resistance (Ohm)?
What is the SI unit for the derived unit of power (Watt)?

What is the SI unit for the derived unit of resistance (Ohm)?

Table 3. SI derived units with special names and symbols

SI derived unit

Expression Expression
in terms of in terms of
Derived quantity Name Symbol other SI units SI base units
frequency hertz Hz - s-1
force newton N - m·kg·s-2
pressure, stress pascal Pa N/m2 m-1·kg·s-2
energy, work, quantity of heat joule J N·m m2·kg·s-2
power, radiant flux watt W J/s m2·kg·s-3
electric charge, quantity of electricity coulomb C - s·A
electric potential difference,
volt V W/A m2·kg·s-3·A-1
electromotive force
capacitance farad F C/V m-2·kg-1·s4·A2
electric resistance ohm V/A m2·kg·s-3·A-2
electric conductance siemens S A/V m-2·kg-1·s3·A2
magnetic flux weber Wb V·s m2·kg·s-2·A-1
magnetic flux density tesla T Wb/m2 kg·s-2·A-1
Celsius temperature degree Celsius °C - K
What are unit prefixes?
How many can you name?

Factor Name Symbol Factor Name Symbol

1024 yotta Y 10-1 deci d
1021 zetta Z 10-2 centi c
1018 exa E 10-3 milli m
1015 peta P 10-6 micro µ
1012 tera T 10-9 nano n
109 giga G 10-12 pico p
106 mega M 10-15 femto f
103 kilo k 10-18 atto a
102 hecto h 10-21 zepto z
101 deka da 10-24 yocto y
The kilogram (kg)
It is important to note that the kilogram is the only SI unit with a
prefix as part of its name and symbol.

Because multiple prefixes may not be used, in the case of the

kilogram the prefix names are used with the unit name "gram" and
the prefix symbols are used with the unit symbol "g."

With this exception, any SI prefix may be used with any SI unit,
including the degree Celsius and its symbol °C.

Example:
10-6 kg = 1 mg (one milligram), but not 10-6 kg = 1 µkg (one
microkilogram)
What is interesting about these two numbers?

How can we improve them?

1989100000000000000000000000000 kg

0.000000000000000000000000000091 kg

1.9891 × 1030 kg
9.10938188 × 10-31 kg

How do we define significant figures?

How many significant figures does each number have?

a) 248
b) 7080
c) 600
d) 501.0
e) 2.050
f) 405.7
g) 0.0045
h) 0.040060
i) 4.00
j) 0.004
k) 2.6003
l) 0.00003540
m) 50,005,000
 Significant figures (s.f.)
The significant figures (also called significant digits) of a number
are those digits that carry meaning contributing to its precision.
This includes all digits except:

1. leading zeros where they serve merely as placeholders to

indicate the scale of the number.

2. spurious digits introduced, for example, by calculations

carried out to greater accuracy than that of the original
data, or measurements reported to a greater precision
than the equipment supports.
The concept of significant digits is often used in connection with rounding.

Rounding to n significant digits is a more general-purpose technique than

rounding to n decimal places, since it handles numbers of different scales in
a uniform way.

For example, the population of a city might only be known to the nearest
thousand and be stated as 52,000, while the population of a country might
only be known to the nearest million and be stated as 52,000,000.

The former might be in error by hundreds, and the latter might be in error
by hundreds of thousands, but both have two significant digits (5 and 2).

This reflects the fact that the significance of the error (its likely size relative
to the size of the quantity being measured) is the same in both cases.
 Identifying significant digits.
The rules for identifying significant digits when writing or
interpreting numbers are as follows:

All non-zero digits are considered significant. For example, 91

has two significant digits (9 and 1), while 123.45 has five
significant digits (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5).

Zeros appearing anywhere between two non-zero digits are

significant. Example: 101.12 has five significant digits: 1, 0, 1, 1
and 2.

Leading zeros are not significant. For example, 0.00052 has two
significant digits: 5 and 2.
Trailing zeros in a number containing a decimal point are significant.
For example, 12.2300 has six significant digits.

The number 0.000122300 still has only six significant digits (the
zeros before the 1 are not significant).

In addition, 120.00 has five significant digits.

This convention clarifies the precision of such numbers; for example,

if a result accurate to four decimal places is given as 12.23 then it
might be understood that only two decimal places of accuracy are
available.

Stating the result as 12.2300 makes clear that it is accurate to four

decimal places.
Significant figures (s.f.)
The number of s.f. reflects the precision of value or input data.

The number of s.f. in a calculation is determined by the original

values.

e.g. , ,

How many significant figures should we quote for the value of

resistance?

However, since I is only given to two s.f. , then even though p.d. is
measured to 3 s.f. ,then we should only quote the value of R to 2
s.f. i.e.