What comes to

General your mind when

you hear the
word PHYSICS?

Physics 1
Lecture 1

LAWS OF MOTION

QUANTUM
MECHANICS
LIGHT, MATTER AND
PHYSICAL PROCESSES

Units
• Physics is an experimental science.
• Physics is science. – Why do physicist conduct experiments?
• Physics is fun. – How do physicists derive conclusions?
• It is an exciting adventure in the quest
to find out patterns in nature and find
means of understanding phenomena
through careful deductions based on
experimental verification.
 SI Units
• 1960
• SI units are used by scientists and
engineers is the “metric system”,
which is officially known as the
“International System” or SI units
(abbreviation for its French term,
Système International).
Length
• 1 meter is defined as the distance
travelled by light in a vacuum in
1/299,792,458 second.
• Based on the definition that the speed
of light is exactly 299,792,458 m/s.

Time
• 1 second is defined as 9,192,631,770
cycles of the microwave radiation due
to the transition between the two
lowest energy states of the cesium
atom. This is measured from an atomic
clock using this transition.
Mass
• 1 kg is defined to be the mass of a
cylinder of platinum-iridium alloy at the
International Bureau of weights and
measures (Sèvres, France).

Review: Conversion of units

• Few countries use the British system of
units
– However, the conversion between the
British system of units and SI units have
been defined
 SI Prefixes Recall rules of the following
• Rounding off
• Significant Figures
• Scientific Notation

Look for a partner. Let's try this!

• A jeepney tried to overtake a car. The
jeepney moves at 75km/hour, convert
this to the British system (feet per
second)?
• It takes about 8.0 minutes for light to
travel from the sun to the earth. How
far is the sun from the earth (in meters,
in feet)?

Conversion1
• The world land speed record is 763.0
mi h, set on October 15, 1997, by Andy
Green in the jet-engine car Thrust SSC.
Express this speed in meters per
second.
Answer
• We need to convert the units of a
speed from mi h to We must therefore
nd unit multipliers that relate (i) miles
to meters and (ii) hours to seconds.
 Conversion 2
• The world’s largest cut diamond is the • Here we are to convert the units of a
First Star of Africa (mounted in the volume from cubic inches to both
British Royal Sceptre and kept in the cubic centimeters and cubic meters.
Tower of London). Its volume is 1.84
cubic inches. What is its volume in
cubic centimeters? In cubic meters?