MEASUREMENT

LESSON OBJECTIVES
At the end of this lesson, you are expected to:
• identify experimental errors and how to estimate errors from multiple
measurements of a physical quantity using variance;
• solve measurement problems involving conversion of units and expression
of measurements in scientific notation;
• explain the importance of measurements in daily life.

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 Activity: It’s My Unit!
Direction: Given the material or event, select a unit of measurement that can be used to describe it.
1. Distance of a town to another = kilometers, centimeters, meters
2. Average height of a human = kilometers, centimeters, meters
3. Weight of a full grown chicken = kilograms, grams, milligrams
4. Thickness of a hardbound 300 pages book = kilometers, centimeters, meters
5. Collision impact on objects = years , hours, seconds
6. Medicinal dosage = kilograms , grams , milligrams
7. Time of a space travel = years , hours , seconds
8. Charging a cell phone = years , hours , seconds
9. Information response through the use of internet = years , hours , seconds
10. Weight of an insect = kilograms , grams , milligrams

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• Lesson Introduction
Physics is concerned with describing the interactions of energy, matter, space, and time, and it is
especially interested in what fundamental mechanisms underlie every phenomenon.
• Physics is the study of the rules (usually stated mathematically) by which the physical world
operates.
• These rules describe “how” things happen. Laws of Nature
• These rules don’t say “why” things happen. Physicists are most interested in being able to
predict what will happen. Many physicists think that because they can say how things happen,
they have answered the why.
• Why does gravity pull things together? Newton described the effects over 100 years before
anyone asked why gravity happened. Einstein suggested that mass bends space-time, but that is
just a model.
• Physics deals with “how”. “Why” is philosophy.

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 Introduction
• Physics aims to describe the function of everything around us, from the
movement of
• tiny charged particles to the motion of people, cars, and spaceships.
• Physics has many applications which is useful in everyday situation.
• Physics is the foundation of many important disciplines and contributes
directly to
• others.

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 Model, Theory, Law
 Model
 A representation of something that is often too difficult (or impossible) to
display directly.
 It is only accurate under limited situations.
 Theory
 an explanation for patterns in nature that is supported by scientific evidence
and verified multiple times by various groups of researchers.
 Law
 Uses concise language to describe a generalized pattern in nature that is
supported by scientific evidence and repeated experiments.
 Often, a law can be expressed in the form of a single mathematical equation.

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 Scientific Method
• Can be used to solve many types of problems, not just science

○ Usually begins with observation and question about the

phenomenon to
• be studied
○ Next preliminary research is done and hypothesis is developed
○ Then experiments are performed to test the hypothesis
○ Finally the tests are analyzed and a conclusion is drawn
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 Units and its Measurement
• Measurement
- is the act of determining matter’s size, length, weight,
capacity or other aspect.

• A measurement unit
- is a standard quantity used to express a physical quantity.

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 Units and its Measurement
▸ Units
○ USA uses English system as was used by the British Empire
○ Rest of world uses SI system (International System or Metric System)

▸ Fundamental Units - Can only be defined by procedure to measure them

○ Time = second (s)
○ Distance = meter (m)
○ Mass = kilogram (kg)
○ Electric Current = ampere (A)
▸ All other units are derived from these 4
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 Units and its Measurement
• Length describes how long a thing is from one end to another.
• Mass is the amount of matter a thing consists of.
• Time is the ongoing sequence of events.

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 DISCUSSION POINT
 Metric Prefixes
○ SI system based on powers of ten
○ Memorize from T to p

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• Scientific notation is a way of expressing numbers that are too
large or too small to be conveniently written in decimal form.

• Conversion factor the equivalent amount of a single

measurement by using the equivalent amount of unit

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 Example
Solve what are asked below:
1. A rectangular building lot is 100 ft by 150 ft. Determine the area of this lot in 𝑚𝑚2.
2. The speed limit on some interstate highways is roughly 100 km/h. (a) What is this
in meters per second? (b) How many miles per hour is this?
3. American football is played on a 100-yd-long field, excluding the end zones. How
long is the field in meters?
4. The speed of sound is measured to be on a 342 m/s certain day. What is this in
km/h?
5. According to the label on a bottle of salad dressing, the volume of the contents is
0.473 Liters, express this volume in cubic inches.
6. The density of a lead is 11.3 𝑔𝑔
what is this value in kilogram per cubic meter.
𝑐𝑐𝑚𝑚 3

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 TRY
Use dimensional analysis to perform the indicated conversions.
1. 7 miles to yards 11. 234 oz to tons
2. 11.2 mg to grams 12. 1.35 km to centimetres
3. 9,800,000 mm to miles 13. 4.5 ft2 to square yards
5. 435,000 m2 to square kilometer 14. 8 km2 to square feet
6. 0.0065 km3 to cubic metres 15. 14.62 in.2 to square centimetres
7. 5500 cm3 to cubic yards 16. 3.5 mph (miles per hour) to feet per second
8. 185 yd per min. to miles per hour 17. 153 ft/s (feet per second) to miles per hour
9. 248 mph to metres per second 18. 186,000 mph to kilometres per year
10. 7.50 tons/yd2 to pounds per square inch 19. 16 ft/s2 to kilometres per hour squared

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 ACCURATE VS PRECISE
Accurate but not precise Accurate but not precise

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 Accuracy
• It refers to the closeness of the measurements to the true or
accepted value. A new spring balance is likely to be more
accurate than an old spring balance that has been used many
times.

Figure 1. The accuracy of hits on the dartboards

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 Precision
• It refers to the closeness of the measurements of the results to
each other. A physicist who frequently carries out a complex
experiment is likely to have more precise results than someone
who is just learning the experiment.

Figure 2. The precision of hits on the dartboards

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• There are certain factors affecting the precision and accuracy of a
measurement. These are

 measuring device used

 manner of measurement

 condition of the environment during measurement.

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 Degree of Accuracy and Precision
• The center of the bull’s-eye represents the accepted value. The closer a dart
is to a bull’s-eye, the more accurate the throwing of the dart. The closer the
darts are to each other, the more precise the throws.

High accuracy and High accuracy; Low accuracy; Low accuracy and
precision Low precision High precision precision

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 Experimental Errors
• All experimental uncertainty is due to either random errors or
systematic errors. Random errors are statistical fluctuations
(in either direction) in the measured data due to the precision
limitations of the measurement device.

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• Random errors usually result from the experimenter’s inability
to take the same measurement in exactly the same way to get
exact the same number. Random errors are statistical
fluctuations (in either direction) in the measured data due to
the precision limitations of the measurement device. Random
errors can be evaluated through statistical analysis and can be
reduced by averaging over a large number of observations.

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• Systematic errors, by contrast, are reproducible inaccuracies
that are consistently in the same direction. Systematic errors
are often due to a problem which persists throughout the entire
experiment.
Source: MABINI COLLEGES, INC.
MABINI COLLEGES, INC. - High School Department
https://lawrencekok.blogspot.com/2014/03/ib
HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT
(Flora A. Ibana Campus) [email protected]
Tel. No.: (054) 875 – 0884
-chemistry-on-uncertainty-error.html
Kapt. Isko St., Daet, Camarines Norte
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 Common sources of error in physics laboratory
• Incomplete definition (may experiments
be systematic or random)
• Failure to account for a factor (usually systematic)
• Environmental factors (systematic or random)
• Instrument resolution (random)
• Calibration (systematic)
• Zero offset (systematic)
• Physical variations (random)
• Parallax (systematic or random
• Lag time and hysteresis (systematic)
• Instrument drift (systematic)
• Personal errors
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• The accuracy and precision of a measuring system leads to
uncertainty.

• A device can repeated get the same measurement (precise), but

always be wrong (not accurate).
 Experimental Value − Accepted Value
𝑃𝑃𝑒𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑒𝑛𝑛𝑡𝑡 𝐸𝐸𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑟𝑟 = | |𝑥𝑥100%
Accepted Value
 Significant Figures
• Significant Figures
○ Used to reflect uncertainty in measurements

• Each measuring device can only measure so accurately

• The last digit is always an estimate

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▸ To find significant figures
○ Ignore placeholder zeros between the decimal point and the first
nonzero digit
○ Count the number of other digits

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 Examples
▸ 0.000000602
○ 3 sig figs
▸ 1032000
○ 4 sig figs
▸ 1.023
○ 4 sig figs

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 Rules for combining significant figures
○ Addition or subtraction
■ The answer can contain no more decimal places than the least
precise measurement.
■ 1.02 + 2.0223 = 3.04
○ Multiplication or division
■ The result should have the same number of significant figures as the
quantity having the least significant figures entering into the
calculation.
■ 1.002 ⋅ 2.0223 = 2.026
▸ I will accept 3 significant figures for all problems in future assignments/quiz

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 A C T I V I T Y : P R E C I S I O N A N D A C C U R A C Y

Objectives:
1.Analyze sets of data a n d decide w h e t h e r the m e a s u r e m e n t s are precise
a n d / or accurate.
2. Calculate percent error.

T h e following sets of m e a s u r e m e n t for the density of a small cylinder of

a l u m i n u m w e r e given. T h e ‗accepted‘ d ensity of a l u m i n i u m is 2 . 7 0 2 g / c m 3 .
S E T A S E T B
2. 2 4 0 g / c m 3 2.700 g/cm 3

2. 6 9 0 g / c m 3 2.705 g/cm 3

2. 4 5 0 g / c m 3 2.703 g/cm 3

2. 1 5 0 g / c m 3 2.701 g/cm 3

Calculate the average value for each set of density