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Chapter 1 Study Guide
Chapter 1 introduces general concepts which are important in
all the natural sciences. Measurements and quantitative
statements are at the very core of all modern experimental science,
and these are the "ground rules" for talking about and working with
quantitative statements about the real world.
Suggested Problems
The following problems (in the textbook) are illustrative of the
important concepts covered in this chapter, and are of comparable
difficulty with what you might see on homeworks or exams: Chapter
1, problems 25, 28, 30(a), 33, 34, 41, 42, 43, 44, 53, 58, 73, 76, 77, 80.
If you can do these, you know your stuff!
Important Topics and Concepts
- Quantitative vs. Qualitative statements
- Precision
- Significant figures and their use - multiplication, division, addition and subtraction
- Scientific Notation
- SI Units
- Base units - meters, seconds, kilograms, Kelvins
- Other useful "base" units - liters, mL, grams
- Other temperature scales - Celsius and Fahrenheit
- "Built-up" units - area, volume, density
- Standard prefixes - Table 1.3, and tera, peta and femto
- Unit conversions (a.k.a. Dimensional Analysis)
- Many problems are really unit-conversion problems!
- Important conversions -
- degrees C to degrees F to Kelvins
- cm to in
- oz to g
- all SI-prefix conversions (mm to m, for instance)
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