Technical Perspective: An Elegant Model for Deriving Equations

We have encountered units and elementary dimensional analysis in our high school science classes. For instance, the mass of an object is expressed in kilograms (kg). Likewise, length is expressed using meters (m) and time in seconds (s). Other physical quantities such as acceleration has dimensions m s-2 (derived from its definition), whereas force has dimensions kg m s-2. The latter arises from Newton's second law that states that force (F) is equal to the mass (m) times the acceleration (a).