The activity of caesium-133 is used to define the second – one of our base units
© Kim/stock.adobe.com
Units are fundamental to physics – they are crucial in any measurement and can also help us to understand the meaning of an equation. Many a school student has forgotten units in their calculations, only to have their teacher scrawl ‘UNITS!’ on their work. But what are base units? Where do they come from, and how we can break down derived units into base units?
The beginning of this article covers definitions and where the base units come from. For a more practical application of base units in an A-level context you may wish to jump to the second half of the article, on derived units.
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