Physics I

Class 1

Measurements

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What is Physics?
Physicists study the fundamental objects and interactions of
nature, and their many-body manifestations.
Quantitative - Measurements determine the relevant
physical variables.
Predictive - If we can predict the behavior of a physical
system then we understand the system and its
interactions.
Mathematical - The parts we understand are framed in
appropriate mathematical language to facilitate
predictions. This is called a theory.
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Measurements
Measurements play a vital role in Physics.
They identify the most important variables for a particular system eg. volume of gas, mass of an atom, or length of a solid object.
They constrain theory
eg. experiments tell us the mass of an object remains constant even
when it changes speed, until the speed approaches the speed of light.
They provide empirical values for parameters that can't be predicted
eg. if I measure the mass of a rock I can predict its motion because I
know how gravity works.

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Units
Standardized units allow measured quantities to be compared, and predicted
results to be compared with experimental results.
In this class we use SI units, but you will occasionally need to convert from
another system of units.

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Measurement Uncertainties
Since measurements are key to developing a physical theory, we also need to
understand the limitations of a measurement.
We quantify the accuracy of a measurement using the same units as the measured
quantity.
Note: we will often make very sloppy estimates of measurement uncertainties, but
crude estimates are better than none at all!

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Random Uncertainties
The results of a complicated measurement (ie. all of them) are randomly
distributed about the proper value.
Ex) If I use a meter stick to measure the length of a table, I should report both
the length as well as an estimate of the measurement accuracy.
In some cases we can determine the random uncertainty by repeating a
measurement many times.
Ex) If several different people measure the same table we can safely assume
that they are making independent measurements and will often get different
answers. The variation in their answers tells us the random uncertainty in the
measurement.
Why does repeating the measurement introduce random variation?
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Statistical Uncertainties
A common way to report random uncertainties is to assume they have been produced by a large
number of uncontrolled variables in the measurement
eg. temperature of meter stick, location of eye, type of glasses worn, amount of wine
consumed, etc.
In this limit all random uncertainties take a specific form called a Gaussian distribution.
In your math class it is called a "normal" distribution. It tells us the probability for measuring a
certain value when the mean value is known.

In this example X is a
measured quantity
with no units.

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Gaussian Distribution
The randomness of a series of
measurements can be quantified by
calculating the "standard deviation":

1 N
( xi xmean ) 2

N 1 i 1

where N is the number of measurements

and x mean is the average of the
measured values.

The usual way to report mean and standard deviation is:

x mean sigma
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