San Diego State UniversityPHYSICS 195Lab 1 physics -2-VERIFIED BY EXPERT TUTORS

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PHYSICS 182A/195L LAB REPORT - LAB 1: UNIT CONVERSIONS Lab 1: Unit Conversions San Diego State University Department of Physics Physics 182A/195L TA: Lab partner 1: Lab partner 2: Date: 9/11/2... 0 Score: Theory In all of the labs that we perform in the course, we will be dealing with measurements of physical quantities such as length, time and mass. So that we can compare different measurements of each of these quantities, we need to decide on which ​units​ to use. Units are constants such as feet (ft), seconds (s), and pounds (lbs) that allow us to give meaning to the numbers we use to describe lengths, times and masses. Dimensions Fundamental dimensional quantities (e.g. length, time, mass) have irreducible units. In other words, their units are not complex products or fractions of other units. These are called ​base quantities​.​ On the other hand, quantities like speed, acceleration, force, and energy have units which ​are​ products and fractions of other quantities. These are called ​derived​ quantities. For example, There are even more complicated quantities, such as energy: Any physical quantity can be written as a combination of base quantities. The base quantities length, mass, and time, can be easily measured using basic tools such as rules, scales, and clocks. The other more complicated things like speed and acceleration can be derived by combining theoretical understanding and practical unit analysis. 1 Department of PhysicsUnits In order for units to be useful for comparing different measurements, they have to be used consistently. For example, if you are told that one candy bar has 220 Calories, and another has 920480 Joules, it’s hard to determine which has more energy. Therefore, we should ​convert one of these units into the other. It turns out that 1 Joule = 0.000239006 Calories. A nice property of units is that you can treat them just like algebraic variables: [Show More]

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