# 1.2 Physical quantities and units  (Page 4/18)

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Metric prefixes for powers of 10 and their symbols
Prefix Symbol Value See Appendix A for a discussion of powers of 10. Example (some are approximate)
exa E ${\text{10}}^{\text{18}}$ exameter Em distance light travels in a century
peta P ${\text{10}}^{\text{15}}$ petasecond Ps 30 million years
tera T ${\text{10}}^{\text{12}}$ terawatt TW powerful laser output
giga G ${\text{10}}^{9}$ gigahertz GHz a microwave frequency
mega M ${\text{10}}^{6}$ megacurie MCi high radioactivity
kilo k ${\text{10}}^{3}$ kilometer km about 6/10 mile
hecto h ${\text{10}}^{2}$ hectoliter hL 26 gallons
deka da ${\text{10}}^{1}$ dekagram dag teaspoon of butter
${\text{10}}^{0}$ (=1)
deci d ${\text{10}}^{-1}$ deciliter dL less than half a soda
centi c ${\text{10}}^{-2}$ centimeter cm fingertip thickness
milli m ${\text{10}}^{-3}$ millimeter mm flea at its shoulders
micro µ ${\text{10}}^{-6}$ micrometer µm detail in microscope
nano n ${\text{10}}^{-9}$ nanogram ng small speck of dust
pico p ${\text{10}}^{-\text{12}}$ picofarad pF small capacitor in radio
femto f ${\text{10}}^{-\text{15}}$ femtometer fm size of a proton
atto a ${\text{10}}^{-\text{18}}$ attosecond as time light crosses an atom

## Known ranges of length, mass, and time

The vastness of the universe and the breadth over which physics applies are illustrated by the wide range of examples of known lengths, masses, and times in [link] . Examination of this table will give you some feeling for the range of possible topics and numerical values. (See [link] and [link] .)

## Unit conversion and dimensional analysis

It is often necessary to convert from one type of unit to another. For example, if you are reading a European cookbook, some quantities may be expressed in units of liters and you need to convert them to cups. Or, perhaps you are reading walking directions from one location to another and you are interested in how many miles you will be walking. In this case, you will need to convert units of feet to miles.

Let us consider a simple example of how to convert units. Let us say that we want to convert 80 meters (m) to kilometers (km).

The first thing to do is to list the units that you have and the units that you want to convert to. In this case, we have units in meters and we want to convert to kilometers .

Next, we need to determine a conversion factor    relating meters to kilometers. A conversion factor is a ratio expressing how many of one unit are equal to another unit. For example, there are 12 inches in 1 foot, 100 centimeters in 1 meter, 60 seconds in 1 minute, and so on. In this case, we know that there are 1,000 meters in 1 kilometer.

Now we can set up our unit conversion. We will write the units that we have and then multiply them by the conversion factor so that the units cancel out, as shown:

$80\overline{)\text{m}}×\frac{\text{1 km}}{1000\overline{)\text{m}}}=0\text{.080 km.}$

Note that the unwanted m unit cancels, leaving only the desired km unit. You can use this method to convert between any types of unit.

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