Physics Honors - Scientific Method & Measurements Quiz

1.1 & 1.3

Scientific Method

a process, or steps taken, to produce reliable results to answer a specific question

Steps:

1. Observe

2. Research

3. Hypothesis

4. Experiment

5. Conclusion

6. Share results

Observation (#1)

all that can be observed with the 5 senses

Research (#2)

use reliable sources to learn background information

may answer other questions you have & help refine your experiment

Hypothesis (#3)

• prediction of what you believe will occur

  • if…then statement → SPECIFIC

• a detailed scientific explanation for a set of observations that can be verified or rejected by careful experiments

• observations + inferences (can help) = hypothesis!

• makes predictions that can be tested with experiments

• must be rejected if it disagrees with experiment

Experiment (#4)

• collects 2 types of data (qualitative (descriptions) and quantitative (numbers))

• finding variables

  • independent vs. dependent variables

*a valid experiment has both an experimental and control group

Independent Variable

the variable you change in an experiment

Dependent Variable

the variable you measure to see how it depends on the independent variable

Theory

a detailed explanation of some aspect of nature that accounts for a set of well-tested hypotheses

meter

basic metric unit for length

second

basic unit of time

gram

basic unit of MASS

SI Units

base units of meters (m), grams (g), and seconds (s)

Mass

measure of the amount of matter in an object

Is an INTRINSIC, unchanging property of an object, NOT to be confused with weight

Weight

measure of the gravitational force acting on an object (varies depending on the object’s location)

peta (P)

10¹⁵

tera (T)

10¹²

giga (G)

10⁹

mega (M)

10⁶

kilo (k)

10³

hecto (h)

10²

deca (da)

10¹

base

10⁰=1

deci (d)

10^-1

centi ( c )

10^-2

milli (m)

10^-3

micro (µ)

10^-6

nano (n)

10^-9

pico (p)

10^-12

femto (f)

10^-15