PHYSICAL

QUANTITY
Besaran fisika:

Physical Quantity
pengamatan dan
pengukuran

Physical Measurement Method

(Metode Pengukuran Fisika)
SF 091306
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Gatut Yudoyono
Physics department,MIPA-ITS
Like all other sciences, physics is based on experimental

observations and quantitative measurements.

The main objective of physics is to find the limited

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number of fundamental laws that govern natural
phenomena and to use them to develop theories that
can predict the results of future experiments.

The fundamental laws used in developing theories are expressed in the

language of mathematics, the tool that provides a bridge between
theory and experiment.

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The need for assigning numerical values to various measured physical
quantities was expressed by Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) as
follows:

“I often say that when you can measure what you are

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speaking about, and express i t in numbers,
numbers you
should know something about it, but when you
cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge
is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind. It may
be the beginning of knowledge but you have scarcely
in your thoughts advanced to the state of science.”

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The laws of physics are expressed as mathematical
relationships among physical quantities.
quantities

Most of these quantities are derived quantities,

in that they can be expressed as combinations of

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a small number of basic quantities.

In mechanics, the three basic quantities are

• Length
• Mass
• Time.
All other quantities in mechanics can be expressed in terms of these
three.
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Standards of Length, Mass, and Time

If we are to report the results of a measurement to someone who wishes to

reproduce this measurement, a standard must be defined.

It would be meaningless if a visitor from another planet were to

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talk to us about a length of 8 “glitches” if we do not know the
meaning of the unit glitch.

Likewise, if we are told that a person has a mass of 75 kilograms and our
unit of mass is defined to be 1 kilogram, then that person is 75 times as
massive as our basic unit.

Whatever is chosen as a standard must be readily accessible and

possess some property that can be measured reliably.

Measurements taken by different people in different places

must yield the same result. 5
A unit is a particular physical quantity, defined and adopted by
convention, with which other particular quantities of the same kind are
compared to express their value.

The value of a physical quantity is the quantitative expression of a

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particular physical quantity as the product of a number and a unit, the
number being its numerical value.

For example, the circumference of the earth around the equator is given by:
Ce = 40.074.103 m

where Ce is the physical quantity and the number 40.074. 103 is the
numerical value of this quantity expressed in the unit "meter".
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The basic units a physical materialization should be available
that enables a comparison of the associated quantity with other
instruments: a standard.

The value of the quantity that is represented by such a

standard is exactly 1 by convention.

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For instance the unit of the meter was the distance between two small
scratches on a particular platinum bar that was kept under the
supervision of the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM)
in Srvres, France.

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For other units too (primary) standards have been constructed, and they
have been used for a long time to compare the unit value with other
standards, called secondary standards.

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The unit value for the quantities mass, length and time have been
chosen with a view to practical applicability. For instance, the
circumference of the earth could be a proper standard but is highly
impractical; therefore the meter was originally defined (1791) as one
ten millionth of a quarter of the earth's meridian passing through
Paris, which is a much more practical measure for daily life usage.

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Length

In A.D. 1120 the king of England decreed that the standard of length in his
country would be named the yard (3 ft) and would be precisely equal to
the distance from the tip of his nose to the end of his outstretched arm.

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Similarly, the original standard for the foot adopted by the French
was the length of the royal foot of King Louis XIV (until 1799).

The legal standard of length in France became the meter, defined as

one ten-millionth the distance from the equator to the North
Pole along one particular longitudinal line that passes
through Paris.

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 Evidently, these physical standards were much more stable and
reproducible than those defined earlier on the basis of human properties.

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Length of a foot, defined as the average of the feet of 12 men 10
As recently as 1960, the length of the meter was defined as

the distance between two lines on a specific platinum–iridium bar

stored under controlled conditions in France.

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In the 1960s and 1970s, the meter was defined as

1 650 763.73 wavelengths of orange-red light emitted from

a krypton-86 lamp.

However, in October 1983, the meter (m) was redefined as

the distance traveled by light in vacuum during a time of

1/299 792458 second.

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Mass

The SI unit of mass, the kilogram (kg), is defined as the mass of a

specific platinum–iridium alloy cylinder kept at the International Bureau of
Weights and Measures at Sèvres, France.

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This mass standard was established in
1887 and has not been changed since that
time because platinum–iridium is an
unusually stable alloy.

A duplicate of the Sèvres cylinder is

kept at the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST) in
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Gaithersburg, Maryland
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Time

Before 1960, the standard of time was defined in terms of the mean
solar day for the year 1900.

(A solar day is the time interval between successive

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appearances of the Sun at the highest point it reaches in the
sky each day.)

The second was defined as of a mean solar day.

The rotation of the Earth is now known to vary slightly with time,
however, and therefore this motion is not a good one to use for defining
a time standard.

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In 1967, the second was redefined to take advantage of the high
precision attainable in a device known as an atomic clock , which uses
the characteristic frequency of the cesium-133 atom as the “reference
clock.”

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The second (s) is now
defined as 9 192 631770
times the period of
vibration of radiation from
the cesium atom.

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Quantities and
properties
A quantity is a property ascribed to phenomena, processes or objects, to
which a value or a class can be assigned.

Quantities can be classified in many ways into groups.

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Quantities that have magnitude only are called scalar quantities;
a quantity with magnitude and direction is called a vector quantity.

We distinguish energy related quantities (associated with energetic

phenomena, for instance force, electric current) and quantities that are not

associated with energy (static quantities or simply properties, for instance

resistivity, length).
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Properties that are independent of the dimensions or the amount of
matter are pure material properties; others have a value that is
determined not only by the substance but also by the size or the
construction layout.

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For instance, the resistivity ρ (Ω m) is a pure material
property, where as the resistance R(Ω ) depends on the
material as well as the dimensions of the resistor body.

Variables characterizing the state of a system are related by physical

laws. Variables acting upon the system are called independent variables.

Variables describing the system's state are related to these input

variables, hence they are called dependent variables.
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A particular variable can be dependent or independent, according to its
purport in the system.

The classification of quantities, based on an energetic consideration:

through-variables and across-variables (the geometric, electrical,
magnetic, thermal, mechanical, and optical domains).
domains

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The geometric domain

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The electrical and magnetic domain

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In the electrical domain, some particular quantities associated with time
apply.

The duty cycle is defined as the high-low ratio of one period

in a periodic pulse signal:

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The thermal domain

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The mechanical domain

Quantities in the mechanical domain describe state properties related to

distance, force and motion.

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The optical domain

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n d
e
The seven standard units are defined as follows:

The meter is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a
time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second [17th CGPM (1983), Res.1].

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A former standard meter," left: end view of the British copy of the International
Meter; right: rulings on the polished facet; the two thick vertical lines indicate the
length at 0~ and 20~ taking into account the thermal expansion [National Physical
Laboratory, Teddington, Middlesex]

CGPM = Conference Generale des Poids et Mesures 36

The kilogram is the unit of mass; it is equal to the mass of the international
prototype of the kilogram [ 1 st CGPM (1889)].

The second is the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation

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corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the
ground state of the cesium 133 atom [13th CGPM (1967), Res.1].

The ampere is that constant current which, if maintained in two straight

parallel conductors of infinite length, of negligible circular cross-section, and
placed 1 meter apart in vacuum, would produce between these conductors a
force equal to 2 x 10 -7 newton per meter of length [9th CGPM (1948)].

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The Kelvin,
Kelvin unit of thermodynamic temperature, is the fraction 1/273.16 of the
thermodynamic temperature of the triple point of water [ 13th CGPM (1967),
Res.4].

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The mole is the amount of substance of a system which contains
as many elementary entities as there are atoms in 0.012
kilogram of carbon 12 [14th CGPM (1971), Res.3].

The candela is the luminous intensity, in a given direction, of a source that

emits monochromatic radiation of frequency 540x1012 hertz and that has a
radiant intensity in that direction of 1/683 watt per steradian [16th CGPM
(1979), Res.3].

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Physical quantity is the numerical value of a measurable property that
describes a physical system's state at a moment in time.

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A physical property is any measurable property the value of
which describes a physical system's state at any given
moment in time.

For that reason the changes in the physical quantities of a system

describe its transformation (or evolution between its momentary states).

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International System of Units base quantities
Name Symbol for Symbol for SI base unit Symbol for unit
quantity dimension

Length l, x, r, etc. L meter m

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Time t T second s
Mass m M kilogram kg
Electric current I, i I ampere A

Thermodynamic temperature
T θ kelvin K

Amount of n N mole mol

substance

Luminous intensity Iv J candela cd

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The physical properties of an object are defined traditionally in a Newtonian sense;
the physical properties of an object may include, but are not limited to:

•absorption •electric charge •location •radiance

•albedo •electric field •luminance •solubility
•area •electric potential
•luster •specific heat
•brittleness •malleability •resistance

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•boiling point •emission •magnetic field •reflectivity
•capacitance •flow rate •magnetic flux •spin
•color •fluidity •mass •strength
•concentration •frequency •melting point •temperature
•conductance •impedance •moment •tension
•density •inductance •momentum •thermal transfer
•dielectric •intensity •permeability
•ductility •irradiance •permittivity •velocity
•distribution •length •pressure •viscosity
•efficacy •volume

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A quantity is called:
•extensive when its magnitude is additive for subsystems (volume,
mass, etc.)
•intensive when the magnitude is independent of the extent of the
system (temperature, pressure, etc.)

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There are also physical quantities that can be classified as neither
extensive nor intensive, for example angular momentum, area, force,
length, and time.

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