PHYS 1 – PHYSICS FOR ENGINEERS ENGR. FREDERICK P.

PEREZ II, CE

CHAPTER 1 nuclei) or at very high veloci es. These insights enabled a deeper understanding of the
behavior of solids, liquids, and gases and introduced ideas such as the quan za on of energy
INTRODUCTION and the rela onship between mass and energy (expressed in Einstein’s famous equa on, 𝐸 =
The word physics stems from the Greek term meaning “the knowledge of the 𝑚𝑐 ).
natural world.” This reflects its origins in ancient Greece, where systema c efforts to While the focus of the text is on classical physics, connec ons to modern physics are
understand mo on and other natural phenomena began. Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) developed occasionally highlighted. For example, the text discusses rela vis c effects when considering
a system of natural philosophy based on deduc ve reasoning from fundamental assump ons veloci es near the speed of light and examines the quan za on of energy in the context of
about the world rather than experimenta on. For instance, he assumed that all substances conserva on laws. This approach provides a bridge between the macroscopic principles of
had a “natural place” in the universe, and mo on was interpreted as a substance striving to classical physics and the microscopic and rela vis c phenomena of modern physics.
reach this place. Since Aristotle’s deduc ons appeared consistently with observed mo ons Together, these disciplines offer a comprehensive framework for understanding the natural
and no experiments challenged his views, this framework persisted for nearly two thousand world.
years.
A major shi occurred during the Renaissance when the Italian scien st Galileo UNITS
Galilei (1564–1642) emphasized experimenta on as the founda on of understanding The laws of physics express rela onships among physical quan es. Physical
mo on. His groundbreaking experiments laid the groundwork for modern physics. About a quan es are numbers that are obtained by measuring physical phenomena. For example,
century later, Isaac Newton generalized Galileo’s findings into his three laws of mo on, which the length of this book is a physical quan ty, as is the amount of me it takes for you to read
became central to classical physics, effec vely ending the dominance of Aristotelian natural this sentence and the temperature of the air in your classroom.
philosophy. Some of the most basic physical quan es— me, length, and mass—are defined
The next two centuries witnessed an explosion of discoveries and raised new by the processes of measuring them. The length of a pole, for example, is defined to be the
ques ons. Scien sts explored phenomena involving electricity, heat, light, sound, and gases, number of some unit of length that is required to equal the length of the pole. A physical
leading to the development of thermodynamics and electromagne sm. By the late 19th quan ty is o en defined using an opera onal defini on, a statement that defines a physical
century, Newton’s laws were complemented by the laws established by figures such as James quan ty by the opera on or procedure that should be carried out to measure the physical
Maxwell (electromagne sm), James Joule (energy), and Sadi Carnot (thermodynamics). quan ty. Other physical quan es are defined by describing how to calculate them from
Collec vely, these disciplines formed the founda on of classical physics, which focuses on these fundamental quan es. The speed of an object, for example, is equal to a length
macroscopic phenomena and dominates the first five parts of the text referenced. divided by me. Many of the quan es that you will be studying, such as velocity, force,
Classical physics was so successful that many believed it offered a complete descrip on of momentum, work, energy, and power, can be expressed in terms of me, length, and mass.
the physical universe. However, discoveries at the turn of the 20th century began to reveal Thus, a small number of basic units are sufficient to express all physical quan es. These
their limita ons. Wilhelm Röntgen’s discovery of X-rays in 1895 and the work on radioac vity basic units are called base units, and the choice of base units determines the system of units.
by Antoine Becquerel, Marie Curie, and Pierre Curie could not be explained within the
framework of classical physics. In 1905, Albert Einstein proposed the theory of special THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF UNITS
rela vity, extending the classical ideas of space and me ini ally developed by Galileo and In 1960, the SI system (Système Interna onal) was established to provide consistent
Newton. In the same year, Einstein introduced the revolu onary idea that light energy is units for scien fic measurements. It includes seven base quan es: length, mass, me,
quan zed, sugges ng that light consists of discrete packets called photons. This marked the electric current, temperature, amount of substance, and luminous intensity. The base units
beginning of quantum mechanics, a field that fundamentally changed our understanding of for these are the second ( me), meter (length), kilogram (mass), ampere (electric current),
energy and ma er. kelvin (temperature), mole (amount of substance), and candela (luminous intensity),
Quantum mechanics and special rela vity together became the founda on of although the candela is not used in this context.
modern physics, which deals with phenomena at extremely small scales (atoms, molecules,

Page | 1
 PHYS 1 – PHYSICS FOR ENGINEERS ENGR. FREDERICK P. PEREZ II, CE

Time. The unit of me, the second (s), was historically defined in terms of the UNIT PREFIXES
rota on of Earth and was equal to (1/60) (1/60) (1/24) of the mean solar day. Some mes it is necessary to work with measurements that are much smaller or
much larger than the standard SI units. In these situa ons, we can use other units that are
Length. The meter (m) is the SI unit of length. Historically, this related to the standard SI units by a mul ple of ten. Prefixes are used to denote the different
length was defined as one ten-millionth of the distance powers of ten. For example, the prefix “kilo” means 1000, or 10 , while the prefix “micro”
between the equator and the North Pole along the meridian means 0.000 001, or 10 Table 1-1 lists prefixes for common mul ples of SI units. These
through Paris (Figure 1-1). Currently, the meter is determined prefixes can be applied to any SI unit; for example, 0.001 second is 1 millisecond (ms) and
using the speed of light through empty space, which is defined 1000000 wa s is 1 megawa (MW).
to be exactly 299792458 𝑚/𝑠. The meter, then, is the
distance light travels through empty space in 1/ OTHER SYSTEMS OF UNITS
299792458 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑. In addi on to SI, other systems of units are some mes used. One such system is the
cgs system. The fundamental units of the cgs system are the cen meter for length, the gram
Mass. The SI unit of mass, the kilogram (kg) was once defined as for mass, and the second for me. Other cgs units include the dyne (force) and the erg (work
the mass of one liter of water at 4°C. The kilogram is now defined or energy).
to be the mass of a specific pla num-iridium alloy cylinder. This
cylinder, called the standard body, is kept at the CONVERSION OF UNITS
Interna onal Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sèvres, France. Because different systems of units are in use, it is important to know how to convert
from one unit to another unit. When physical quan es are added, subtracted, mul plied,
or divided into an algebraic equa on, the unit can be treated like any other algebraic quan ty.
A ra o such as (1 mi)/(1.609 km) is called a conversion factor, which is a ra o equal
to 1 and expresses a quan ty expressed in some unit or units divided by its equal expressed
some different unit or units.

EXAMPLE 1.1
Your employer sends you on a trip to a foreign country where the road signs give distances
in kilometers and the automobile speedometers are calibrated in kilometers per hour. If you
drive 90 𝑘𝑚/ℎ, how fast are you going in meters per second and in miles per hour?

DIMENSIONS OF PHYSICAL QUANTITIES

Recall that a physical quan ty includes both a number and a unit. The unit tells the
standard that is used for the measurement and the number gives the comparison of the
quan ty to the standard. To tell what you are measuring, however, you need to state the
dimension of the physical quan ty. Length, me, and mass are all dimensions. The distance,
d, between two objects has dimensions of length. We express this rela on as d =L where d
represents the dimension of the distance d and L represents the dimension of length. All
dimensions are represented by upper-case roman (nonitalic) le ers.

Page | 2
 PHYS 1 – PHYSICS FOR ENGINEERS ENGR. FREDERICK P. PEREZ II, CE

Adding or subtrac ng two physical quan es makes sense only if the quan es The accuracy of the sum or difference of measurements is only as good as the accuracy of
have the same dimensions. For example, we cannot add an area to a speed to obtain the least accurate of the measurements. A general rule is
a meaningful sum. For the equa on
𝐴 =𝐵+𝐶 When adding or subtrac ng quan es, the number of decimal places in the answer
should match that of the term with the smallest number of decimal places.
the quan es A, B, and C must all have the same dimensions. The addi on of B and C also
requires that these quan es be in the same units. For example, if B is an area of 500 𝑖𝑛.
and C is 4 𝑓𝑡. , we must either convert B into square feet or C into square inches in order to EXAMPLE 1.2
find the sum of the two areas. Subtract 1.040 from 1.21342.
EXAMPLE 1.3
Apply the appropriate rule for significant figures to calculate the following:
a.) 1.58 𝑥 0.03
b.) 1.4 + 2.53
c.) 2.456 − 2.453

SCIENTIFIC NOTATION
When we work with very large or very small numbers we can show significant figures more
easily by using scien fic nota on. In this nota on, the number is wri en as a product of a
number between 1 and 10 and a power of 10, such as 10 (= 100) or 10 (= 1000).

EXAMPLE 1.4
A liter (L) is the volume of a cube that is 10 cm by 10 cm by 10 cm. If you drink 1 L (exact) of
water, how much volume in cubic cen meters and in cubic meters would it occupy in your
stomach?
SIGNIFICANT FIGURES AND ORDER OF MAGNITUDE EXAMPLE 1.5
A reliably known digit (other than a zero used to locate the decimal point) is called In 12.0 g of carbon, there are 𝑁 = 6.02 𝑥 10 carbon atoms (Avogadro’s number). If you
a significant figure. The number 2.50 has three significant figures; 2.503 m has four. The could count 1 atom per second, how long would it take to count the atoms in 1.00 g of
number 0.00130 has three significant figures. (The first three zeroes are not significant carbon? Express your answer in years.
figures but are merely markers to locate the decimal point.) The number 2300. has four
significant figures, but the number 2300 (the same as 2300. but without the decimal point) ORDER OF MAGNITUDE
could have as few as two or as many as four significant figures. The number of significant In doing rough calcula ons, we some mes round off a number to the nearest power of 10.
figures in numbers with trailing zeros and no decimal point is ambiguous. To determine the Such a number is called an order of magnitude. For example, the height of an ant might be
appropriate numbers of significant figures for calcula ons involving mul plica on and 8 𝑥 10 𝑚 or approximately 10 𝑚.
division, you can follow this general rule:

When mul plying or dividing quan es, the number of significant figures in the final
answer is no greater than that in the quan ty with the fewest significant figures.

Page | 3