Unit 2 Summary

Dimensions and Units

I can …

  • Explain the difference between dimensions and units
  • Identify the seven fundamental dimensions
  • Look up the dimensions for various physical quantities such as velocity, acceleration and force.
  • Find the dimension for a given formula
  • Perform a unit conversion

Dimensional Analysis

I can …

  • Determine whether an equation is dimensionally feasible (consistent) or dimensionally infeasible (inconsistent)
  • Perform a dimensional analysis to guess the formula for a physical system, given the inputs and the output.

Fermi Estimation

I can …

  • Find the order of magnitude of a number
  • Estimate the order of magnitude of a simple quantity
  • Explain why 300 is a good choice to estimate a magnitude that is definitely bigger than 100 but less than 1000
  • Make a Fermi Estimation of a complicated quantity by making a sequence of simpler estimations.