The International System of Units (SI)

All systems of weights and measures, metric and non-metric, are linked through a
network of international agreements supporting the International System of
Units. The International System is called the SI, using the first two initials of its
French name Système International d'Unités. The key agreement is the Treaty of the
Meter (Convention du Mètre), signed in Paris on May 20, 1875. 48 nations have now
signed this treaty, including all the major industrialized countries. The United States
is a charter member of this metric club, having signed the original document back in
1875.

The SI is maintained by a small agency in Paris, the International Bureau of Weights

and Measures (BIPM, for Bureau International des Poids et Mesures), and it is
updated every few years by an international conference, the General Conference on
Weights and Measures (CGPM, for Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures),
attended by representatives of all the industrial countries and international scientific
and engineering organizations. The 22nd CGPM met in October 2003; the next
meeting will be in 2007. As BIPM states on its web site, "The SI is not static but
evolves to match the world's increasingly demanding requirements for
measurement."

At the heart of the SI is a short list of base units defined in an absolute way without
referring to any other units. The base units are consistent with the part of the metric
system called the MKS system. In all there are seven SI base units:

• the meter for distance,

• the kilogram for mass,
• the second for time,
• the ampere for electric current,
• the kelvin for temperature,
• the mole for amount of substance, and
• the candela for intensity of light.

Other SI units, called SI derived units, are defined algebraically in terms of these
fundamental units. For example, the SI unit of force, the newton, is defined to be the
force that accelerates a mass of one kilogram at the rate of one meter per second
per second. This means the newton is equal to one kilogram meter per second
squared, so the algebraic relationship is N = kg·m·s-2. Currently there are 22 SI
derived units. They include:

• the radian and steradian for plane and solid angles, respectively;
• the newton for force and the pascal for pressure;
• the joule for energy and the watt for power;
• the degree Celsius for everyday measurement of temperature;
• units for measurement of electricity: the coulomb (charge), volt (potential),
farad (capacitance), ohm (resistance), and siemens (conductance);
• units for measurement of magnetism: the weber (flux), tesla (flux density),
and henry (inductance);
• the lumen for flux of light and the lux for illuminance;
• the hertz for frequency of regular events and the becquerel for rates of
radioactivity and other random events;
• the gray and sievert for radiation dose; and
• the katal, a unit of catalytic activity used in biochemistry.

Future meetings of the CGPM may make additions to this list; the katal was added by
the 21st CGPM in 1999.

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In addition to the 29 base and derived units, the SI permits the use of certain
additional units, including:

• the traditional mathematical units for measuring angles (degree, arcminute,

and arcsecond);
• the traditional units of civil time (minute, hour, day, and year);
• two metric units commonly used in ordinary life: the liter for volume and the
tonne (metric ton) for large masses;
• the logarithmic units bel and neper (and their multiples, such as the decibel);
and
• three non-metric scientific units whose values represent important physical
constants: the astronomical unit, the atomic mass unit or dalton, and the
electronvolt.

The SI currently accepts the use of certain other metric and non-metric units
traditional in various fields. These units are supposed to be "defined in relation to the
SI in every document in which they are used," and "their use is not encouraged."
These barely-tolerated units might well be prohibited by future meetings of the
CGPM. They include:

• the nautical mile and knot, units traditionally used at sea and in meteorology;
• the are and hectare, common metric units of area;
• the bar, a pressure unit, and its commonly-used multiples such as the millibar
in meteorology and the kilobar in engineering;
• the angstrom and the barn, units used in physics and astronomy.

The SI does not allow use of any units other than those listed above and their
multiples. In particular, it does not allow use of any of the English traditional units
(the horsepower, for example), nor does it allow the use of any of the algebraically-
derived units of the former CGS system, such as the erg, gauss, poise, stokes, or gal.
In addition, the SI does not allow use of other traditional scientific and engineering
units, such as the torr, curie, calorie, or rem.

Certain scientific fields have defined units more or less compatible with the SI, but
not part of the SI. The use of the jansky in astronomy is a good example. There is
always the chance that future meetings of the CGPM could add these units to the SI,
but for the present they are not approved.

For multiples of approved units, the SI includes a list of prefixes. This list has been
extended several times, most recently by the 19th CGPM in 1991. Prefixes now range
from yotta- at 1024 (one septillion) to yocto- at 10-24 (one septillionth). There seems to
be some need for another extension, but this question was not addressed at the 1999
CGPM. The SI does not allow these prefixes to be used for binary multiples, such as
the use of "kilobit" to mean 1024 bits instead of 1000. For binary multiples a new list
of special prefixes has been established by the International Electrotechnical
Commission.

Each SI unit is represented by a symbol, not an abbreviation. The use of unit symbols
is regulated by precise rules. These symbols are the same in every language of the
world. However, the names of the units themselves vary in spelling according to
national conventions. Therefore, it is correct for Americans to write meter and
Germans to write Meter, and it is also correct for the British to write metre, Italians to
write metro, and Poles to write metr. See Spelling of Metric Units for additional
comments.

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Metric Prefixes

To help the SI units apply to a wide range of phenomena, the 19th General
Conference on Weights and Measures in 1991 extended the list of metric prefixes so
that it reaches from yotta- at 1024 (one septillion) to yocto- at 10-24 (one septillionth).
Here are the metric prefixes, with their numerical equivalents stated in the American
system for naming large numbers:

yotta- (Y-) 1024 1 septillion

zetta- (Z-) 1021 1 sextillion
exa- (E-) 1018 1 quintillion
peta- (P-) 1015 1 quadrillion
tera- (T-) 1012 1 trillion
giga- (G-) 109 1 billion
mega- (M-) 106 1 million
kilo- (k-) 103 1 thousand
hecto- (h-) 102 1 hundred
deka- (da-)
10 1 ten
**
deci- (d-) 10-1 1 tenth
centi- (c-) 10-2 1 hundredth
milli- (m-) 10-3 1 thousandth
micro- (µ-) 10-6 1 millionth
nano- (n-) 10 -9
1 billionth
10-
pico- (p-) 12 1 trillionth

10- 1
femto- (f-) 15
quadrillionth
10-
atto- (a-) 18 1 quintillionth

10-
zepto- (z-) 21 1 sextillionth

10-
yocto- (y-) 24 1 septillionth

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 Roman and "Arabic" Numerals

The use of Roman numerals has been mathematically obsolete for more than 1100
years. Nonetheless, the Roman symbols for numbers continue to be used in a variety
of ways, most of them rather stereotyped: to mark the hours on clock faces, to
number pages in the prefaces of books, to express copyright dates, and to count
items in a series (such as the Super Bowls of U.S. professional football).

The form of Roman numeration used today was established during the Middle Ages in
Western Europe. It is derived from the systems actually used in Roman times, but
with certain improvements. The basic Roman numerals as used today are:

I=1 V=5 X = 10 L = 50 C = 100 D = 500 M = 1000

The symbols are repeated to form larger numbers, and when different symbols are
combined, the larger unit precedes the smaller. Thus VIII represents 8, CLXXX is 180,
and MMDCCXXV is 2725.

The Romans usually wrote IIII for 4 and XXXX for 40. The number 949 was
DCCCCXXXXVIIII. To shorten the length of such numbers a "subtraction rule" was
sometimes used in Roman times and was commonly used in medieval times. The
"subtraction rule" allows the use of six compound symbols in which a smaller unit
precedes the larger:

IV = 4 IX = 9 XL = 40 XC = 90 CD = 400 CM = 900

Using these symbols, 949 is written more compactly as CMXLIX. (Other "subtracted"
symbols are not allowed. Thus 99 must written XCIX, not IC.) The use of subtracted
symbols was never mandatory, so IIII and IV can be used interchangeably for 4.

Actually, the symbols D (500) and M (1000) were originally written using a vertical
stroke with surrounding arcs; these arcs can only be approximated on this page by
using parentheses. D appeared as I ) and M as ( I ). This system allowed powers of
ten larger than 1000 to be written by increasing the number of arcs: 10 000 was
written (( I )) and 100 000 was written ((( I ))). The Romans had no word for 1 000
000 and rarely considered numbers of that size or larger. In late Roman and medieval
times, after D and M were adopted as the symbols for 500 and 1000, a custom arose
of writing a bar over a number to multiply that number by 1000. Thus 10 000 became
X with a bar over it and 100 000 became C with a bar over it. These "overbarred"
symbols are almost never seen today.

In Roman times, only the capital letters were used for number symbols. Later, after
lower case letters came into use, Roman numbers were often written in lower case.
Thus "vi" means 6 and "cxxii" means 122. Sometimes cases were even mixed, as in
"Mcxl" for 1140. Furthermore, the lower case letter "j" was sometimes used in place
of "i". A common custom was to write "j" for the last in a series of one's, as in "xiij"
for 13.

KENNETH’s FILE
Roman numerals continued in use in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, and
they remained in general use for centuries after our modern number system became
available. As we see, their use in certain applications continues even today.

The modern system of numeration is based on place value, with the same symbol,
such as 4, taking on different meaning (4, 40, 400, etc.) depending on its location
within the representation of the number. Place value notation was used long ago in
Babylonian cuneiform numerals, but our modern decimal place value system was
invented by Hindu mathematicians in India, probably by the sixth century and
perhaps even earlier. The modern numerals 1, 2, 3, ..., are sometimes called "Arabic"
numerals in the West because they were introduced to Europeans by Arab scholars.
The key figure was the great Arab mathematician Mohammed ibn-Musa al-
Khowarizmi, who taught at Baghdad sometime between 800 and 850. He wrote a
book on the Hindu number system known today only in a later Latin translation as De
numero indorum, "On the Hindu numbers." Subsequently he wrote a longer and very
influential work, Al-jabr w'al muqabalah, known in Europe as Algebra, which included
all the techniques of arithmetic still taught in schools today. The author's name,
Latinized as "Algorismus," is the root of the English word "algorithm".

The Hindu-Arabic numeration system was known in Europe by 1000, but at first it
didn't make much of a dent in the use of Roman numerals. During the 1100's the
"Arabic" numerals were a topic of great interest among European scholars, and
several translations of the Algebra appeared. In 1202, Leonardo of Pisa (ca. 1180-
1250) published a famous book Liber abaci explaining and popularizing the Hindu-
Arabic system, the use of the zero, the horizontal fraction bar, and the various
algorithms of the Algebra. (Leonardo is better known today by his patronymic
Fibonacci, "son of Bonaccio.") Thereafter modern numerals and the standard
operations of arithmetic were commonly used by scholars, but Roman numerals
continued to be used for many purposes, including finance and bookkeeping, for
many centuries to come.

Incidentally, the numerals 0123456789 are more properly known as European digits.
The numerals actually used in Arabic script, the true Arabic numerals, are of different
forms; see Islamicity.com for a more complete discussion

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Names for Large Numbers

The English names for large numbers are coined from the Latin names for small
numbers n by adding the ending -illion suggested by the name "million." Thus billion
and trillion are coined from the Latin prefixes bi- (n = 2) and tri- (n = 3), respectively.
In the American system for naming large numbers, the name coined from the Latin
number n applies to the number 103n+3. In a system traditional in many European
countries, the same name applies to the number 106n.

In particular, a billion is 109 = 1 000 000 000 in the American system and 1012 = 1
000 000 000 000 in the European system. For 109, Europeans say "thousand million"
or "milliard."

Although we describe the two systems today as American or European, both systems
are actually of French origin. The French physician and mathematician Nicolas
Chuquet (1445-1488) apparently coined the words byllion and tryllion and used them
to represent 1012 and 1018, respectively, thus establishing what we now think of as
the "European" system. However, it was also French mathematicians of the 1600's
who used billion and trillion for 109 and 1012, respectively. This usage became
common in France and in America, while the original Chuquet nomenclature
remained in use in Britain and Germany. The French decided in 1948 to revert to the
Chuquet ("European") system, leaving the U.S. as the chief standard bearer for what
then became clearly an American system.

In recent years, American usage has eroded the European system, particularly in
Britain and to a lesser extent in other countries. This is primarily due to American
finance, because Americans insist that $1 000 000 000 be called a billion dollars. In
1974, the government of Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced that henceforth
"billion" would mean 109 and not 1012 in official British reports and statistics. The
Times of London style guide now defines "billion" as "one thousand million, not a
million million."

The result of all this is widespread confusion. Anyone who uses the words "billion"
and "trillion" internationally should make clear which meaning of those words is
intended. On the Internet, some sites outside the U.S. use the compound designation
"milliard/billion" to designate the number 1 000 000 000. In science, the names of
large numbers are usually avoided completely by using the appropriate SI prefixes.
Thus 109 watts is a gigawatt and 1012 joules is a terajoule. Such terms cannot be
mistaken.

There is no real hope of resolving the controversy in favor of either system.

Americans are not likely to adopt the European nomenclature, and Europeans will
always regard the American system as an imposition. However, it is possible to
imagine a solution: junk both Latin-based systems and move to a Greek-based
system in which, for n > 3, the Greek number n is used to generate a name for 10 3n.
(The traditional names thousand and million are retained for n = 1 and 2 and the
special name gillion, suggested by the SI prefix giga-, is proposed for n = 3.)

KENNETH’s FILE
 Greek-based
American European
n = 103n = SI prefix name
name name
(proposed)
3 109 billion milliard giga- gillion
4 1012 trillion billion tera- tetrillion
5 1015 quadrillion billiard peta- pentillion
6 1018 quintillion trillion exa- hexillion
7 1021 sextillion trilliard zetta- heptillion

KENNETH’s FILE
8 1024 septillion quadrillion yotta- oktillion
9 1027 octillion quadrilliard ennillion
10 1030 nonillion quintillion dekillion
11 1033 decillion quintilliard hendekillion
12 1036 undecillion sextillion dodekillion
13 1039 duodecillion sextilliard trisdekillion
14 1042 tredecillion septillion tetradekillion
15 1045 quattuordecillion septilliard pentadekillion
16 1048 quindecillion octillion hexadekillion
17 1051 sexdecillion octilliard heptadekillion
18 1054 septendecillion nonillion oktadekillion
19 1057 octodecillion nonilliard enneadekillion
20 1060 novemdecillion decillion icosillion
21 1063 vigintillion decilliard icosihenillion
22 1066 unvigintillion undecillion icosidillion
23 1069 duovigintillion undecilliard icositrillion
24 1072 trevigintillion duodecillion icositetrillion
quattuorvigintillio
25 1075 duodecilliard icosipentillion
n
26 1078 quinvigintillion tredecillion icosihexillion
27 1081 sexvigintillion tredecilliard icosiheptillion
28 1084 septenvigintillion quattuordecillion icosioktillion
29 1087 octovigintillion quattuordecilliard icosiennillion
30 1090 novemvigintillion quindecillion triacontillion
31 1093 trigintillion quindecilliard triacontahenillion
32 1096 untrigintillion sexdecillion triacontadillion
33 1099 duotrigintillion sexdecilliard triacontatrillion

This process can be continued indefinitely, but one has to stop somewhere. The
name centillion (n = 100) has appeared in many dictionaries. A centillion is 10303 (1
followed by 303 zeroes) in the American system and a whopping 10 600 (1 followed by
600 zeroes) in the European system.

Finally, there is the googol, the number 10100 (1 followed by 100 zeroes). Invented
more for fun than for use, the googol lies outside the regular naming systems. The
googol equals 10 duotrigintillion in the American system, 10 sexdecilliard in the
European system, and 10 triacontatrillion in the proposed Greek-based system.

The googolplex (1 followed by a googol of zeroes) is far larger than any of the
numbers discussed here.

KENNETH’s FILE
Derived Units of the International System (SI)

In addition to the seven base units, the General Conference on Weights and Measures
has approved 22 names for SI units defined as combinations of the base units. Within
the SI, these units are the named derived units.

Following are links to the definitions of these 22 units. The third column shows how
each unit is derived from the preceding units, and the fourth column gives the formal
equivalence of the unit in terms of the base units.

Derived Unit Measures Derivation Formal Definition

hertz (Hz) frequency /s s-1
newton (N) force kg·(m/s2) kg·m·s-2
pascal (Pa) pressure N/m2 kg·m-1·s-2
joule (J) energy or work N·m kg·m2·s-2
watt (W) power J/s kg·m2·s-3
coulomb (C) electric charge A·s A·s
volt (V) electric potential W/A kg·m2·s-3·A-1
farad (F) electric capacitanceC/V kg-1·m-2·s4·A2
ohm (omega) electric resistance V/A kg·m2·s-3·A-2
electric
siemens (S) A/V kg-1·m-2·s3·A2
conductance
weber (Wb) magnetic flux V·s kg·m2·s-2·A-1
magnetic flux
tesla (T) Wb/m2 kg·s-2·A-1
density
henry (H) inductance Wb/A kg·m2·s-2·A-2
degree Celsius
temperature K - 273.15 K
(°C)
radian (rad) plane angle m·m-1
steradian (sr) solid angle m2·m-2
lumen (lm) luminous flux cd·sr cd·sr
lux (lx) illuminance lm/m2 m-2·cd·sr-1
becquerel (Bq) activity /s s-1
gray (Gy) absorbed dose J/kg m2·s-2
sievert (Sv) dose equivalent Gy·(multiplier) m2·s-2
katal (kat) catalytic activity mol/s mol·s-1

The term derived unit covers any algebraic combination of the base units, but it is
only the 22 combinations listed above that have approved special names. For
example, the SI derived unit of momentum (mass times velocity) has no special
name; momentum is stated in kilogram meters per second (kg·m/s) or in newton
seconds (N·s). A few SI derived units do have special names that have been defined
but not approved. Here are some examples:

Derived Unit Measures Derivation

stere (st) volume m3
diopter (dpt) refractive power m-1
thermal ohm thermal resistance K/W
poiseuille (Pl) dynamic viscosity Pa·s
rayl sound impedance Pa·s/m
acoustic ohm sound resistance Pa·s/m3
daraf electric elastance F-1
talbot luminous energy lm·s
nit (nt) luminance cd/m2
molal chemical concentration mol/kg

English Customary Weights and Measures

KENNETH’s FILE
Distance
In all traditional measuring systems, short distance units are based on the
dimensions of the human body. The inch represents the width of a thumb; in fact, in
many languages, the word for "inch" is also the word for "thumb." The foot (12
inches) was originally the length of a human foot, although it has evolved to be
longer than most people's feet. The yard (3 feet) seems to have gotten its start in
England as the name of a 3-foot measuring stick, but it is also understood to be the
distance from the tip of the nose to the end of the middle finger of the outstretched
hand. Finally, if you stretch your arms out to the sides as far as possible, your total
"arm span," from one fingertip to the other, is a fathom (6 feet).

Historically, there are many other "natural units" of the same kind, including the digit
(the width of a finger, 0.75 inch), the nail (length of the last two joints of the middle
finger, 3 digits or 2.25 inches), the palm (width of the palm, 3 inches), the hand (4
inches), the shaftment (width of the hand and outstretched thumb, 2 palms or 6
inches), the span (width of the outstretched hand, from the tip of the thumb to the tip
of the little finger, 3 palms or 9 inches), and the cubit (length of the forearm, 18
inches).

In Anglo-Saxon England (before the Norman conquest of 1066), short distances seem
to have been measured in several ways. The inch (ynce) was defined to be the length
of 3 barleycorns, which is very close to its modern length. The shaftment was
frequently used, but it was roughly 6.5 inches long. Several foot units were in use,
including a foot equal to 12 inches, a foot equal to 2 shaftments (13 inches), and the
"natural foot" (pes naturalis, an actual foot length, about 9.8 inches). The fathom was
also used, but it did not have a definite relationship to the other units.

When the Normans arrived, they brought back to England the Roman tradition of a
12-inch foot. Although no single document on the subject can be found, it appears
that during the reign of Henry I (1100-1135) the 12-inch foot became official, and the
royal government took steps to make this foot length known. A 12-inch foot was
inscribed on the base of a column of St. Paul's Church in London, and measurements
in this unit were said to be "by the foot of St. Paul's" (de pedibus Sancti Pauli). Henry I
also appears to have ordered construction of 3-foot standards, which were called
"yards," thus establishing that unit for the first time in England. William of
Malmsebury wrote that the yard was "the measure of his [the king's] own arm," thus
launching the story that the yard was defined to be the distance from the nose to the
fingertip of Henry I. In fact, both the foot and the yard were established on the basis
of the Saxon ynce, the foot being 36 barleycorns and the yard 108.

Meanwhile, all land in England was traditionally measured by the gyrd or rod, an old
Saxon unit probably equal to 20 "natural feet." The Norman kings had no interest in
changing the length of the rod, since the accuracy of deeds and other land records
depended on that unit. Accordingly, the length of the rod was fixed at 5.5 yards (16.5
feet). This was not very convenient, but 5.5 yards happened to be the length of the
rod as measured by the 12-inch foot, so nothing could be done about it. In the Saxon
land-measuring system, 40 rods make a furlong (fuhrlang), the length of the
traditional furrow (fuhr) as plowed by ox teams on Saxon farms. These ancient Saxon
units, the rod and the furlong, have come down to us today with essentially no
change. The chain, a more recent invention, equals 4 rods or 1/10 furlong in order to
fit nicely with the Saxon units.

Longer distances in England are traditionally measured in miles. The mile is a Roman
unit, originally defined to be the length of 1000 paces of a Roman legion. A "pace"
here means two steps, right and left, or about 5 feet, so the mile is a unit of roughly
5000 feet. For a long time no one felt any need to be precise about this, because
distances longer than a furlong did not need to be measured exactly. It just didn't
make much difference whether the next town was 21 or 22 miles away. In medieval

KENNETH’s FILE
England, various mile units seem to have been used. Eventually, what made the most
sense to people was that a mile should equal 8 furlongs, since the furlong was an
English unit roughly equivalent to the Roman stadium and the Romans had set their
mile equal to 8 stadia. This correspondence is not exact: the furlong is 660 English
feet and the stadium is only 625 slightly-shorter Roman feet.

In 1592, Parliament settled this question by setting the length of the mile at 8
furlongs, which works out to 1760 yards or 5280 feet. This decision completed the
English distance system. Since this was just before the settling of the American
colonies, British and American distance units have always been the same.

Area
In all the English-speaking countries, land is traditionally measured by the acre, a
very old Saxon unit that is either historic or archaic, depending on your point of view.
There are references to the acre at least as early as the year 732. The word "acre"
also meant "field", and as a unit an acre was originally a field of a size that a farmer
could plow in a single day. In practice, this meant a field that could be plowed in a
morning, since the oxen had to be rested in the afternoon. The French word for the
unit is journal, which is derived from jour, meaning "day"; the corresponding unit in
German is called the morgen ("morning") or tagwerk ("day's work").

Most area units were eventually defined to be the area of a square having sides equal
to some simple multiple of a distance unit, like the square yard. But the acre was
never visualized as a square. An acre is the area of a long and narrow Anglo-Saxon
farm field, one furlong (40 rods) in length but only 4 rods (1 chain) wide. This works
out, very awkwardly indeed, to be exactly 43 560 square feet . If we line up 10 of
these 4 x 40 standard acres side by side, we get 10 acres in a square furlong, and
since the mile is 8 furlongs there are exactly 10 x 8 x 8 = 640 acres in a square mile.

Weight
The basic traditional unit of weight, the pound, originated as a Roman unit and was
used throughout the Roman Empire. The Roman pound was divided into 12 ounces,
but many European merchants preferred to use a larger pound of 16 ounces, perhaps
because a 16-ounce pound is conveniently divided into halves, quarters, or eighths.
During the Middle Ages there were many different pound standards in use, some of
12 ounces and some of 16. The use of these weight units naturally followed trade
routes, since merchants trading along a certain route had to be familiar with the units
used at both ends of the trip.

In traditional English law the various pound weights are related by stating all of them
as multiples of the grain, which was originally the weight of a single barleycorn. Thus
barleycorns are at the origin of both weight and distance units in the English system.

The oldest English weight system has been used since the time of the Saxon kings. It
is based on the 12-ounce troy pound, which provided the basis on which coins were
minted and gold and silver were weighed. Since Roman coins were still in circulation
in Saxon times, the troy system was designed to model the Roman system directly.
The troy pound weighs 5760 grains, and the ounces weigh 480 grains. Twenty
pennies weighed an ounce, and therefore a pennyweight is 480/20 = 24 grains. The
troy system continued to be used by jewelers and also by druggists until the
nineteenth century. Even today gold and silver prices are quoted by the troy ounce in
financial markets everywhere.

Since the troy pound was smaller than the commercial pound units used in most of
Europe, medieval English merchants often used a larger pound called the
"mercantile" pound (libra mercatoria). This unit contained 15 troy ounces, so it
weighed 7200 grains. This unit seemed about the right size to merchants, but its
division into 15 parts, rather than 12 or 16, was very inconvenient. Around 1300 the

KENNETH’s FILE
mercantile pound was replaced in English commerce by the 16-ounce avoirdupois
pound. This is the pound unit still in common use in the U.S. and Britain. Modeled on
a common Italian pound unit of the late thirteenth century, the avoirdupois pound
weighs exactly 7000 grains. The avoirdupois ounce, 1/16 pound, is divided further
into 16 drams.

Unfortunately, the two English ounce units don't agree: the avoirdupois ounce is
7000/16 = 437.5 grains while the troy ounce is 5760/12 = 480 grains. Conversion
between troy and avoirdupois units is so awkward, no one wanted to do it. The troy
system quickly became highly specialized, used only for precious metals and for
pharmaceuticals, while the avoirdupois pound was used for everything else.

Since at least 1400 a standard weight unit in Britain has been the hundredweight,
which is equal to 112 avoirdupois pounds rather than 100. There were very good
reasons for the odd size of this "hundred": 112 pounds made the hundredweight
equivalent for most purposes with competing units of other countries, especially the
German zentner and the French quintal. Furthermore, 112 is a multiple of 16, so the
British hundredweight can be divided conveniently into 4 quarters of 28 pounds, 8
stone of 14 pounds, or 16 cloves of 7 pounds each. The ton, originally a unit of wine
measure, was defined to equal 20 hundredweight or 2240 pounds.

During the nineteenth century, an unfortunate disagreement arose between British

and Americans concerning the larger weight units. Americans, not very impressed
with the history of the British units, redefined the hundredweight to equal exactly 100
pounds. The definition of the ton as 20 hundredweight made the disagreement carry
over to the size of the ton: the British "long" ton remained at 2240 pounds while the
American "short" ton became exactly 2000 pounds. (The American hundredweight
became so popular in commerce that British merchants decided they needed a name
for it; they called it the cental.) Today, most international shipments are reckoned in
metric tons, which, coincidentally, are rather close in weight to the British long ton.

Volume
The names of the traditional volume units are the names of standard containers. Until
the eighteenth century, it was very difficult to measure the capacity of a container
accurately in cubic units, so the standard containers were defined by specifying the
weight of a particular substance, such as wheat or beer, that they could carry. Thus
the gallon, the basic English unit of volume, was originally the volume of eight
pounds of wheat. This custom led to a multiplicity of units, as different commodities
were carried in containers of slightly different sizes.

Gallons are always divided into 4 quarts, which are further divided into 2 pints each.
For larger volumes of dry commodities, there are 2 gallons in a peck and 4 pecks in a
bushel. Larger volumes of liquids were carried in barrels, hogsheads, or other
containers whose size in gallons tended to vary with the commodity, with wine units
being different from beer and ale units or units for other liquids.

The situation was still confused during the American colonial period, so the
Americans were actually simplifying things by selecting just two of the many possible
gallons. These two were the gallons that had become most common in British
commerce by around 1700. For dry commodities, the Americans were familiar with
the "Winchester bushel," defined by Parliament in 1696 to be the volume of a
cylindrical container 18.5 inches in diameter and 8 inches deep. The corresponding
gallon, 1/8 of this bushel, is usually called the "corn gallon" in England. This corn
gallon holds 268.8 cubic inches.

For liquids Americans preferred to use the traditional British wine gallon, which
Parliament defined to equal exactly 231 cubic inches in 1707. As a result, the U.S.

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volume system includes both "dry" and "liquid" units, with the dry units being about
1/6 larger than the corresponding liquid units.

In 1824, the British Parliament abolished all the traditional gallons and established a
new system based on the "Imperial" gallon of 277.42 cubic inches. The Imperial
gallon was designed to hold exactly 10 pounds of water under certain specified
conditions. Unfortunately, Americans were not inclined to adopt this new, larger
gallon, so the traditional English "system" actually includes three different volume
measurement systems: U.S. liquid, U.S. dry, and British Imperial.

On both sides of the Atlantic, smaller volumes of liquid are traditionally measured in
fluid ounces, which are at least roughly equal to the volume of one ounce of water. To
accomplish this in the different systems, the smaller U.S. pint is divided into 16 fluid
ounces, and the larger British pint is divided into 20 fluid ounces.

Because of their many eccentricities, English customary units clearly are more
cumbersome to use than metric units in trade and in science. As metrication
proceeds, they are less and less in use. On the other hand, these traditional units are
rich in cultural significance. We can trace their long histories in their names and
relationships. We should not forget them, and it is unlikely that we will, even when
Britain and America complete their slow conversion to the metric system. The
American economy of the 22nd century may be completely metric, but probably
Americans will still call 30 centimeters a "foot" CGS and MKS Units and 1600 meters a
"mile."

CGS & MKS Systems

Scientists have adopted the metric system to simplify their calculations and promote
communication across national boundaries. However, there have been two ideas as
to which metric units should be preferred in science. Scientists working in
laboratories, dealing with small quantities and distances, preferred to measure
distance in centimeters and mass in grams. Scientists and engineers working in
larger contexts preferred larger units: meters for distance and kilograms for mass.
Everyone agreed that units of other quantities such as force, pressure, work, power,
and so on should be related in a simple way to the basic units, but which basic units
should be used?

The result was two clusterings of metric units in science and engineering. One
cluster, based on the centimeter, the gram, and the second, is called the CGS
system. The other, based on the meter, kilogram, and second, is called the MKS
system.

When we say, for example, that the dyne is the CGS unit of force, this determines its
definition: it is the force which accelerates a mass of one gram at the rate of one
centimeter per second per second. The MKS unit of force, the newton, is the force
which accelerates a mass of one kilogram at the rate of one meter per second per
second. The ratio between a CGS unit and the corresponding MKS unit is usually a
power of 10. A newton accelerates a mass 1000 times greater than a dyne does, and
it does so at a rate 100 times greater, so there are 100 000 = 105 dynes in a newton.

The CGS system was introduced formally by the British Association for the
Advancement of Science in 1874. It found almost immediate favor with working
scientists, and it was the system most commonly used in scientific work for many
years. Meanwhile, the further development of the metric system was based on meter
and kilogram standards created and distributed in 1889 by the International Bureau
of Weights and Measures (BIPM). During the 20th century, metric units based on the
meter and kilogram--the MKS units--were used more and more in commercial
transactions, engineering, and other practical areas. By 1950 there was some

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discomfort among users of metric units, because the need to translate between CGS
and MKS units went against the metric ideal of a universal measuring system. In
other words, a choice needed to be made.

In 1954, the Tenth General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) adopted the
meter, kilogram, second, ampere, degree Kelvin, and candela as the basic units for
all international weights and measures, and in 1960 the Eleventh General Conference
adopted the name International System of Units (SI) for this collection of units. (The
"degree Kelvin" became the kelvin in 1967.) In effect, these decisions gave the
central core of the MKS system preference over the CGS system. Although some of
the CGS units remain in use for a variety of purposes, they are being replaced
gradually by the SI units selected from the MKS system.

Following is a table of CGS units with their SI equivalents. Note that in some cases
there is more than one name for the same unit. The CGS electromagnetic and
electrostatic units are not included in this table, except for those which have special
names.

CGS unit measuring SI equivalent

barye (ba) pressure 0.1 pascal (Pa)
biot (Bi) electric current 10 amperes (A)
calorie (cal) heat energy 4.1868 joule (J)
darcy permeability 0.98692 x 10-12 square meter (m2)
debye (D) electric dipole moment 3.33564 x 10-30 coulomb meter (C·m)
dyne (dyn) force 10-5 newton (N)
emu magnetic dipole moment 0.001 ampere square meter (A·m2)
erg work, energy 10-7 joule (J)
franklin (Fr) electric charge 3.3356 x 10-10 coulomb (C)
galileo (Gal) acceleration 0.01 meter per second squared (m·s-2)
gauss (G) magnetic flux density 10-4 tesla (T)
gilbert (Gi) magnetomotive force 0.795 775 ampere-turns (A)
kayser (K) wave number 100 per meter (m-1)
3183.099 candelas per square meter
lambert (Lb) luminance
(cd·m-2)
langley heat transmission 41.84 kilojoules per square meter (kJ·m-2)
line (li) magnetic flux 10-8 weber (Wb)
maxwell (Mx) magnetic flux 10-8 weber (Wb)
oersted (Oe) magnetic field strength 79.577 472 ampere-turns per meter (A·m-1)
phot (ph) illumination 104 lux (lx)
poise (P) dynamic viscosity 0.1 pascal second (Pa·s)
stilb (sb) luminance 104 candelas per square meter (cd·m-2)
stokes (St) kinematic viscosity 10-4 square meters per second (m2·s-1)
unit pole magnetic flux 1.256 637 x 10-7 weber (Wb)

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