Did you know that the Concorde moves 300,000 times faster than a land snail? Or that a giant redwood can be as tall as a 35-story apartment building? The only reason we can make these comparisons is because people have measured these things. We don’t compare jets and snails every day, but we do rely on measurement constantly. When you take your temperature, you find out how it compares to the temperature of someone who is healthy. When you bake brownies, you’ll need to measure the ingredients first to make sure they turn out tasty. Using measurement, we can make useful comparisons of distance, time, mass, and temperature.
Technology makes it possible to measure things very precisely. Atomic clocks keep time to an accuracy of one millionth of a second per year. Lasers can measure distance to a millionth of a meter. Meter sticks can measure the world. Scientists have figured out creative ways to make microscopic, and gigantic measurements. A scientist’s most important tools are the ones used for measuring – telescopes, spectroscopes, microscopes, stethoscopes, radar, thermometers, corers, Geiger counters, scales, barometers -not to mention the humble meter stick. These are all used to compare things in our Universe and make observations.
Watch Bill Nye and see how we can measure the smallest atom or the largest galaxy!
- Humans measure things to compare them.
- Humans invent standard measurements to make comparisons consistent.
- The basic units of measurement are for length, mass, time and temperature.
Did You Know That?
- In the late 1800′s it was reported that the word “pound” was used for 391 different units of weight?
- The smallest thermometer is one micron in diameter – that’s 1/50th the width of a human hair?
- A meter was intended to be 1/10,000,000th of the distance from the North Pole to the equator?
- “Hidden Worlds: Pictures of the Invisible”by Seymour SimonWilliam Morrow Company, 1983
- “Measurements: Fun, Facts, and Activities”by Caroline ArnoldFranklin Watts, 1984.
FAQs
Measurement is the comparison of an unknown quantity with a known fixed quantity or Measurement is the assignment of a number to a characteristic of an object or event, which can be compared with other objects or events.
What is the symbol for inches? ›
The inches symbol must be closed up to the number, which puts the period at the very end, after the entire expression: 4″ × 5″. Also, please note that the symbol for inches is the double prime (″), not double quotation marks (”) or straight quotation marks (") or (gasp!) two single quotation marks in a row ('').
What are the 7 measurements? ›
The SI comprises a coherent system of units of measurement starting with seven base units, which are the second (symbol s, the unit of time), metre (m, length), kilogram (kg, mass), ampere (A, electric current), kelvin (K, thermodynamic temperature), mole (mol, amount of substance), and candela (cd, luminous intensity) ...
What are the three types of measurement? ›
The three measures are descriptive, diagnostic, and predictive. Descriptive is the most basic form of measurement. A Klout score, your Google Pagerank, the number of unique visitors to your website. Descriptive measurements are what most of us believe measurement to be.
What are the two meanings of measurement? ›
1. the act or process of measuring. 2. an amount, extent, or size determined by measuring.
What is an example of measurement? ›
Measurement is a system to measure the height, weight, capacity or even amount of certain objects. We can measure how long things are or how tall or how far two things are. For example: The height of Oliver is 100 inches and the height of the giraffe is 150 inches.
How do you write 5 feet 5 inches? ›
For inches, the symbol is a double quotation mark (“) and for feet it is a single quotation mark ('). So you would write five feet, six inches like this: 5′ 6″.
What is a centimeter? ›
A centimeter is a metric unit of measurement used for measuring the length of an object. It is written as cm. A meter has 100 centimeters.
What is the symbol for ft? ›
The foot ( pl. feet; standard symbol: ft) is a unit of length in the British imperial and United States customary systems of measurement. The prime symbol, ′, is commonly used to represent the foot. In both customary and imperial units, one foot comprises 12 inches, and one yard comprises three feet.
What are four types of measurement? ›
Psychologist Stanley Stevens developed the four common scales of measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio.
To take measurements means “to measure something in order to know its exact size.” To do this you would need a measuring tape or gadget.”
What are the list of measurements? ›
The base SI units of measurement list is the second (time), meter (length), kilogram (mass), ampere (electric current), kelvin (temperature), mole (amount of substance), and candela (luminous intensity). Metric units of length include the kilometer, hectometer, dekameter, meter, decimeter, centimeter, and millimeter.
What are the two types of measurement? ›
The two systems used for specifying units of measure are the English and metric systems.
