fundamental

magnitudes
 INTRODUCTION

The first men had to dedicate most of their time to the fight for survival, likewise they needed "rudimentary
measures" for activities such as building their homes, clothing, etc. The man began to have in his own body and
natural surroundings, the first measurement references. The forearm, hand, or finger were the first units of
measurement, just as time units were based on the periods of the sun and moon.
Due to the impracticality of the meridian length, a platinum bar was made to represent the new unit of measure.
Copies of it were made and sent to all countries that adopted the Metric System.
Since the stability of the metal bar could not be guaranteed over the years, in 1960 the XI Conference Générale
des Poids et Mesures defined the meter as: .73 wavelengths in a vacuum of radiation corresponding to the
transition between the energy levels of the Krypton 86 atom.
It was in France in the year 1795 where the Decimal Metric System was established in order to solve 2 major
problems: Universality of the units and the subdivisions of the measures.
The Metric System is based on the unit "the meter", with multiples and decimal submultiples. Thanks to
astronomy and geodesy, the definition of the meter was established as the ten-millionth part of the length of a
quarter of the terrestrial meridian.
The XVII General Conference of Poids et Measures of October 20, 1983, abolished the old definition of meter and
promulgated the new one: The meter is the length of the path traveled in a vacuum by light during a time of 1/
of a second.
The new definition of a meter, instead of being based on a single object or a single light source, is open to any
other radiation whose frequency is known with sufficient accuracy.
 FUNDAMENTAL MAGNITUDES
Fundamental quantities are physical quantities chosen by convention that allow any physical quantity to be
expressed in terms of them.
Thanks to their combination, the fundamental magnitudes give rise to the derived magnitudes.
The seven fundamental quantities used in physics adopted for use in the International System of Units are mass,
length, time, temperature, light intensity, amount of substance, and current intensity.
The International System of Units (SI) uses by convention seven fundamental quantities, for which it defines the
following units:

Unit of length: meter (m) is the length of the path traveled in a vacuum by light during a time of 1/
of a second.

Unit of time: second (s) is the duration of radiation periods corresponding to the transition
between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom.

Unit of mass: Kilogram (kg) is a mass equal to that of a cylinder of 39 millimeters in diameter and
height, made of an alloy of 90% platinum and 10% iridium, located at the International Bureau of
Weights and Measures, in Sevres, France.

Unit of amount of substance: mole (mol) is the amount of substance in a system that contains as
many elementary units as there are atoms in 0.012 kg of carbon 12. When the mole is used, the
elementary units must be specified, which can be atoms, molecules, ions, electrons, or other
particles or specified groups of such particles.

Electric current intensity unit: Ampere (A) is the intensity of a constant current that, maintained in
two parallel, rectilinear conductors, of infinite length, of negligible circular section and located at a
distance of one meter from each other in a vacuum, would produce a force equal to 2 x 10-7
newtons per meter of length.

Thermodynamic temperature unit: Kelvin (K) is the thermodynamic temperature corresponding to

Luminous intensity unit: candela (cd) is the luminous unit, in a given direction, from a source that
emits monochromatic radiation of frequency 540x 1012 hertz and whose energy intensity in said
direction is 1/683 watt per steradian.
 SI CHARACTERISTICS

It is based on the metric system and therefore uses the Arabic numeral
system with base 10.
It is coherent, since the derived units are obtained by products or
quotients of the base units; Example: the unit of area, the square
meter (m2), is obtained from the product of mxm.
It is universal, the unit of force, it is independent of the acceleration
due to gravity. This differentiates it from the gravitational system. In
addition, the joule unit is used to measure work, energy and amount
of heat, thus being related to the different forms of energy.
It is univocal. For each magnitude there is only one SI unit, so the unit
of energy is the joule, regardless of the source where it originates, be
it chemical, electrical, mechanical or nuclear.
The factor to find the derived units from the basic ones is always 1.
The base units of the SI are defined in terms of physical experiments
that can be carried out in the laboratory, without recourse to the standard prototype.
Use prefixes to designate multiples of units

Advantages:
 It is an International System, it can be transformed to any measure.
 The one of the most used systems.
 Its nomenclatures is quite easy to use.
 It is the most widely used system in industrial projects and international manufacturing, therefore it has
the advantage that it is homogeneous between countries.

Disadvantages:
 Conversion factors to the metric or English system sometimes become tedious.
 In many calculations it provides very large numbers that are difficult to interpret in some cases.
 The international system is not accepted in places where English is used, therefore it is necessary to
know all the conversions.