We explain what units are and how they can be accumulated or divided. In addition, the main units of measurement.
What is a unit?
The word unity refers, from a general perspective, to the property of everything that exists in a singular way, which cannot be divided without altering or destroying its essence. This term comes from the Latin word unites and this in turn of unus, translatable as "one", "unique" or "singular".
It is easy to imagine the unit as that which is one: a number that cannot be divided into whole parts. Seen like this, the numbers are precisely the expression of the number of times the unit that we are imagining: five would be 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1, for example: five units. Under the same logic, talking about 0.5 would be equivalent to talking about half a unit.
It is in the same sense, the units of measurement are the standardized minimum quantities with which we measure the different physical magnitudes of the world. That is, in each conventional measurement system we need a minimum portion to consider, which cannot be divided into smaller units without changing the scale, and that is precisely the unit.
For example, in the International System of Measurements (SI), also known as the metric system, the units of measurement are:
- For to size the weather, the second (s).
- To measure the length, the meter (m).
- To measure the mass, the kilogram (kg).
- To measure the temperature, the kelvin (K).
- To measure the amount of substance, the mole (mol).
- To measure the intensity of the electric current, the ampere (A).
- To measure the intensity of the light, la candela (cd).
Each of these basic units is part of a measurement pattern, that is, of a specific form of quantification of proportions, which allows us to measure an object in one place or another in the exact same terms.
Every unit, therefore, is part of a pattern and a scale, that is, from a conventional system, from which subunits (or derived units) can be derived: a minute, for example, is 60 seconds, while a kilometer is 1000 meters.