Measurement and Units

These flashcards summarize key concepts related to measurement and units, providing definitions and explanations for essential terms.

What is a unit of measurement?

is one increment of the system being used.

Define a pure number in terms of measurement.

is the number of units determined by the act of measuring.

What does measurement indicate?

is a number that indicates quantity and is followed by a unit.

How is accuracy defined?

refers to how close a measurement is to an accepted reference or theoretical value.

What does precision refer to in measurement?

is the agreement between two or more measurements.

What are derivative units?

are units of measurement that are derived from the basic SI units.

How is mass defined?

is a measure of the amount of matter in a given substance.

What does weight measure?

is a unit measure of the gravitational force exerted on a substance.

What are significant digits?

are the certain digits and the uncertain digit together.

What is counted number?

refers to values like half, twice, dozen, or specific counts such as 30 students or 10 books.

What is scientific notation?

is a convenient way of expressing very large and very small numbers as a mantissa multiplied by 10 raised to some power.

Define exponential factor in relation to numbers.

is the representation of a number as a power of ten.

What is the purpose of unit analysis?

is a problem-solving tool in which the units of numbers are changed by being multiplied by a conversion factor.

What is a conversion factor?

is a ratio constructed from the relationship between two units and is equal to 1.