THE 

 LONDON, EDINBURGH, akd DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND . 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[FIFTH SERIES.] 

 AUGUST 1882. 



X. Remarks on Absolute Systems of Physical Units. 

 By A. F. Sundell*. 



THE great importance of the absolute system of physical 

 units, introduced by Gauss, and developed by William 

 Weber, Kohlrausch, Maxwell, and Jenkin, is no doubt fully 

 recognized by every physicist. It is therefore the more sur- 

 prising that the so-called dimensions of the physical units are 

 so little employed in practice, notwithstanding the demonstra- 

 tion of their great utility given by Prof. Kohlrausch in his 

 well-known Leitfaden der praktischen Physik. These dimen- 

 sions may be regarded as the actual names of the units ; and 

 where they do not accompany the statement of the numerical 

 values of magnitudes, the data are as incomplete as if, in giving 

 a length or a surface, the unit of length or of surface employed 

 were not mentioned. 



The works of the authors named contain all that is necessary 

 for the practical employment of the absolute system. But inas- 

 much as there are several different systems of absolute units 

 employed in physics whose mutual relationships have not been 

 sufficiently clearly pointed out, although definite indications 

 of the connexion between them are to be found, especially in 

 Weber's Elektrodynamisclie Maassbestimmungen, and in Max- 

 well's great work, 'A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism/ 

 I propose to put forward here an elementary theory of abso- 

 lute systems of physical units. 



* Translated from a separate impression from the Acta Sac. Sclent. 

 Fenn. Tom. xii. (Helsingfors, 1881), coninrunicated by the Author. 



Phil. May. S. 5. Vol. 14. No. 86. Aug. 1882. G 



