Lesson: Dimensional Analysis Physics • First Year of Secondary School

In this lesson, we will learn how to determine the dimensions of physical quantities given the relation between those quantities and other known quantities.

Lesson Plan

Students will be able to

recognize that a quantity can be described in terms of its dimensions,
recognize that while a quantity can be measured using lots of different units, it always has the same dimensions,
recall the symbols for four of the basic dimensions: mass , length , time , and current ,
determine the dimensions of common quantities using their defining formulae:
- area = ,
- volume = ,
- speed = ,
- acceleration = ,
- momentum = mass velocity,
- force = ,
- charge = current time,
- frequency = ,
carry out algebraic manipulations of dimensional expressions,
understand dimension notation: ,
determine the dimensions of a quantity given a formula for that quantity and the dimensions of the identifiers in that formula,
recall what units relate to what dimensions,
convert between a unit expression and a dimension expression.