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2: Units, Dimensional Analysis, Problem Solving, and Estimation

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    But we must not forget that all things in the world are connected with one another and depend on one another, and that we ourselves and all our thoughts are also a part of nature. It is utterly beyond our power to measure the changes of things by time. Quite the contrary, time is an abstraction, at which we arrive by means of the change of things; made because we are not restricted to any one definite measure, all being interconnected. A motion is termed uniform in which equal increments of space described correspond to equal increments of space described by some motion with which we form a comparison, as the rotation of the earth. A motion may, with respect to another motion, be uniform. But the question whether a motion is in itself uniform, is senseless. With just as little justice, also, may we speak of an “absolute time” --- of a time independent of change. This absolute time can be measured by comparison with no motion; it has therefore neither a practical nor a scientific value; and no one is justified in saying that he knows aught about it. It is an idle metaphysical conception [1]- Ernst Mach

    • 2.1: The Speed of light
    • 2.2: International System of Units
      The system of units most commonly used throughout science and technology today is the Système International (SI).
    • 2.3: Dimensions of Commonly Encountered Quantities
      Many physical quantities are derived from the base quantities by a set of algebraic relations defining the physical relation between these quantities. The dimension of the derived quantity is written as a power of the dimensions of the base quantities.
    • 2.4: Order of Magnitude Estimates - Fermi Problems
      Counting is the first mathematical skill we learn. We came to use this skill by distinguishing elements into groups of similar objects, but counting becomes problematic when our desired objects are not easily identified, or there are too many to count. Rather than spending a huge amount of effort to attempt an exact count, we can try to estimate the number of objects.

    [1] E. Mach, The Science of Mechanics, translated by Thomas J. McCormack, Open Court Publishing Company, La Salle, Illinois, 1960, p. 273.

    This page titled 2: Units, Dimensional Analysis, Problem Solving, and Estimation is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Peter Dourmashkin (MIT OpenCourseWare) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.