Conceptual Physics Applied
Study Guide Section 1.2
71 Points
Name: ________________________
Date: _________________________
Block/Day: ____________________
Complete the following package by filling in blanks and/or providing solutions to problems.
Answers can be found in your textbook or your notes from class. Example problem solutions
can be found in the textbook and your notes from class.
In science you need a __________________ way to describe the natural world. In physics,
many things are described with _____________________. Measurements such as __________,
mass, _____________ and temperature are important in science.
A measurement is a _________________ value that tells you how much. A measurement
communicates the ___________________ in a way that can be understood by others. For
example, 2 meters is a measurement because it has a __________________ (number), 2 and
a _____________, meters.
All measurements must have _______________. Without a unit a measurement cannot be
________________________. Physics uses a set of units that have been agreed upon around
the world.
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Distance is the amount of separation between __________ unique points. You can also think
of distance as how far apart __________________ objects are. Distance is measured in units
of ______________________. Some commonly used units of length include inches, miles,
_________________, kilometers and ________________. It is important to always specify which
____________________ unit you are using for a measurement.
The __________________ System is used for everyday measurements in the United States.
During the 1800s, a new system of measurement - The ________________ System – was
developed in France. The goal of this system was for all units of measurement to be related
and for the units to form a base-_______ or _______________________ system. In the 1960s
the Metric System was revised and simplified, and a new name was adopted – The
International System of Units or ______________for short. Almost all fields of science
worldwide use SI units because they are _______________ to work with. In SI, there are ____
millimeters in a centimeter, _________ centimeters in a meter and ____________ meters in a
kilometer. Factors of 10 are easier to ________________ and work with __________________.
We often want to know how things change over ______________. Many laws of physics tell
us how things _________________ over time. We describe a quantity of time. The question
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“____________ much time?” is asking for a ______________ of time. A quantity of time is also
called a time ___________________. Any calculation involving time that you do in physics will
use _____________ intervals, not time of ___________. Many problems in science use time in
_________________________.
The ______________________ is the basic unit of time in both the SI and the English systems.
There are 60 seconds in one ______________ and 3,600 seconds in an ___________. In many
experiments, you will observe how things __________________ with time. For example, when
you drop a ball, it _________________ to the ground. The graph shows that it takes the ball
about 0.45 ________________ to fall a distance of 1 ________. When making graphs of results
from experiments, the time almost always goes on the ____________________ or ___________.
The words _______________ and precision have special _____________ in science. Accuracy
is how close a measurement is to its ____________________ or “true” value. Precision does
not have the _______________ meaning as accuracy. Precision describes how close together
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several _________________________ measurements or events are to one another.
Good _________________
Poor _______________
Poor __________________
Good _________________
Good ______________
Poor __________________
_____________________ is another important term to understand when you are working with
measured quantities. Resolution refers to the _______________________ interval that can be
measured. The resolution of a metric ruler is _________________ mm. You can think of
resolution as the “______________________” of a measurement. A measurement with lots of
_______________________ is a very “sharp” measurement.
All measurements involve a degree of ______________________. The object in Figure 1.11 is
definitely longer than 2.6 ____________. Not every one would agree on the third digit of the
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measurement. One person ________________ read the measurement as 2.63 cm. Another
might ______________ it is closer to 2.65 cm. It is ______________ to make a measurement of
the exact true value of anything, except when ____________________ “things.” Using the ruler
in Figure 1.11, the best answer for the length of the paper clip is _________________ cm. The
last digit, _______, represents the smallest amount, 0.05 cm, and it is ____________________.
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