Mechanics and Measurement

Mechanics
physics, the most fundamental physical science, is concerned with the basic
principles of the Universe. It is the foundation upon which the other sciences
astronomy, biology, chemistry, and geologyare based. The beauty of physics
lies in the simplicity of the fundamental physical theories and in the manner in which
just a small number of fundamental concepts, equations, and assumptions can alter
and expand our view of the world around us.
Physics and Measurement

Like all other sciences, physics is based on experimental observations and quantitative
measurements. The main objective of physics is to find the limited 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.
When a discrepancy between theory and experiment arises, new theories must be
formulated to remove the discrepancy. Many times a theory is satisfactory only under
limited conditions; a more general theory might be satisfactory without such limitations.
For example, the laws of motion discovered by Isaac Newton (16421727) in the
17th century accurately describe the motion of objects moving at normal speeds but do
not apply to objects moving at speeds comparable with the speed of light. In contrast,
the special theory of relativity developed by Albert Einstein (18791955) in the early
1900s gives the same results as Newtons laws at low speeds but also correctly describes
motion at speeds approaching the speed of light. Hence, Einsteins special theory of
relativity is a more general theory of motion.
1.1 Standards of Length, Mass, and Time
The laws of physics are expressed as mathematical relationships among physical quantities
that we will introduce and discuss throughout the book. Most of these quantities
are derived quantities, in that they can be expressed as combinations of a small number
of basic quantities. In mechanics, the three basic quantities are length, mass, and time.
All other quantities in mechanics can be expressed in terms of these three.
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 talk to us about a length of 8 glitches if we do not know
the meaning of the unit glitch. On the other hand, if someone familiar with our system
of measurement reports that a wall is 2 meters high and our unit of length is defined
to be 1 meter, we know that the height of the wall is twice our basic length unit. 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.1 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.
In 1960, an international committee established a set of standards for the fundamental
quantities of science. It is called the SI (Systme International), and its units of length,
mass, and time are the meter, kilogram, and second, respectively. Other SI standards established
by the committee are those for temperature (the kelvin), electric current (the
ampere), luminous intensity (the candela), and the amount of substance (the mole).
Length
In A.D. 1120 the king of England decreed that the standard of length in his country
would be named the yard and would be precisely equal to the distance from the tip of
his nose to the end of his outstretched arm. Similarly, the original standard for the foot
adopted by the French was the length of the royal foot of King Louis XIV. This standard
prevailed until 1799, when 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.
Many other systems for measuring length have been developed over the years,
but the advantages of the French system have caused it to prevail in almost all countries
and in scientific circles everywhere. As recently as 1960, the length of the meter
was defined as the distance between two lines on a specific platinumiridium bar
stored under controlled conditions in France. This standard was abandoned for several
reasons, a principal one being that the limited accuracy with which the separation
between the lines on the bar can be determined does not meet the current
requirements of science and technology. 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 1/299 792 458 second. In effect, this
4 C HAPTE R 1 Physics and Measurement
1 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
speaking about, and express it in 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.
latest definition establishes that the speed of light in vacuum is precisely 299 792 458
meters per second.
Table 1.1 lists approximate values of some measured lengths. You should study this
table as well as the next two tables and begin to generate an intuition for what is meant
by a length of 20 centimeters, for example, or a mass of 100 kilograms or a time interval
of 3.2 ! 107 seconds.
Mass
The SI unit of mass, the kilogram (kg), is defined as the mass of a specific
platinumiridium alloy cylinder kept at the International Bureau of Weights
and Measures at Svres, France. This mass standard was established in 1887 and has
not been changed since that time because platinumiridium is an unusually stable alloy.
A duplicate of the Svres cylinder is kept at the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland (Fig. 1.1a).
Table 1.2 lists approximate values of the masses of various objects.
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 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.
In 1967, the second was redefined to take advantage of the high precision attainable
in a device known as an atomic clock (Fig. 1.1b), which uses the characteristic frequency
of the cesium-133 atom as the reference clock. The second (s) is now defined as
9 192 631 770 times the period of vibration of radiation from the cesium atom.2

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Mechanics

Physics and Measurement

1.1 Standards of Length, Mass, and Time

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