Centimetre Gram Second System

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centimetre_gram_second_system_of_units
Centimetre gram second system of units

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The centimetre-gram-second system (abbreviated CGS or cgs) is a metric system of physical units based on
centimetre as the unit of length, gram as a unit of mass, and second as a unit of time. All CGS mechanical units
are unambiguously derived from these three base units, but there are several different ways of extending the
CGS system to cover electromagnetism.
The CGS system has been largely supplanted by the MKS system, based on metre, kilogram, and second. MKS
was in turn extended and replaced by the International System of Units (SI). The latter adopts the three base
units of MKS, plus the ampere, mole, candela and kelvin. In many fields of science and engineering, SI is the
only system of units in use. However, there remain certain subfields where CGS is prevalent.
In measurements of purely mechanical systems (involving units of length, mass, force, energy, pressure, etc.),
the differences between CGS and SI are straightforward and rather trivial; the unit-conversion factors are all
powers of 10 arising from the relations 100 cm = 1 m and 1000 g = 1 kg. For example, the CGS derived unit of
force is the dyne, equal to 1 gcm/s2, while the SI derived unit of force is the newton, 1 kgm/s2. Thus it is
straightforward to show that 1 dyne=105 newton.
On the other hand, in measurements of electromagnetic phenomena (involving units of charge, electric and
magnetic fields, voltage, etc.), converting between CGS and SI is much more subtle and involved. In fact,
formulas for physical laws of electromagnetism (such as Maxwell's equations) need to be adjusted depending on
what system of units one uses. This is because there is no one-to-one correspondence between electromagnetic
units in SI and those in CGS, as there are for mechanical units. Furthermore, within CGS, there are several
plausible choices of electromagnetic units, leading to different unit "sub-systems", including Gaussian, "ESU",
"EMU", and Heaviside-Lorentz. Among these choices, Gaussian units are the most common today, and in fact
the phrase "CGS units" is often used to refer specifically to CGS-Gaussian units.
Contents
1 History
2 Definition of CGS units in mechanics
2.1 Definitions and conversion factors of CGS units in mechanics
3 Derivation of CGS units in electromagnetism
3.1 CGS approach to electromagnetic units
3.2 Alternate derivations of CGS units in electromagnetism
3.3 Various extensions of the CGS system to electromagnetism
3.4 Electrostatic units (ESU)
3.4.1 ESU notation
3.5 Electromagnetic units (EMU)
3.5.1 EMU notation
3.6 Relations between ESU and EMU units
3.7 Other variants
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4 Electromagnetic units in various CGS systems

5 Physical constants in CGS units
6 Pro and contra
7 See also
8 References and notes
9 General literature
History
The CGS system goes back to a proposal made in 1832 by the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss.[1]
In 1874, it was extended by the British physicists James Clerk Maxwell and William Thomson with a set of
electromagnetic units.
The values (by order of magnitude) of many CGS units turned out to be inconvenient for practical purposes. For
example, many everyday length measurements yield hundreds or thousands of centimetres, such as those of
human height and sizes of rooms and buildings. Thus the CGS system never gained wide general use outside the
field of electrodynamics and laboratory science. Starting in the 1880s, and more significantly by the mid-20th
century, CGS was gradually superseded internationally by the MKS (metre-kilogram-second) system, which in
turn became the modern SI standard.
From the international adoption of the MKS standard in the 1940s and the SI standard in the 1960s, the
technical use of CGS units has gradually declined worldwide, in the United States more slowly than elsewhere.
CGS units are today no longer accepted by the house styles of most scientific journals, textbook publishers, or
standards bodies, although they are commonly used in astronomical journals such as the Astrophysical Journal.
CGS units are still occasionally encountered in technical literature, especially in the United States in the fields of
material science, electrodynamics and astronomy.
The units gram and centimetre remain useful as prefixed units within the SI system, especially for instructional
physics and chemistry experiments, where they match the small scale of table-top setups. However, where
derived units are needed, the SI ones are generally used and taught instead of the CGS ones today. For example,
a physics lab course might ask students to record lengths in centimeters, and masses in grams, but force (a
derived unit) in newtons, a usage consistent with the SI system.
Definition of CGS units in mechanics

In mechanics, the CGS and SI systems of units are built in an identical way. The two systems differ only in the
scale of two out of the three base units (centimetre versus metre and gram versus kilogram, respectively), while
the third unit (second as the unit of time) is the same in both systems.
There is a one-to-one correspondence between the base units of mechanics in CGS and SI, and the laws of
mechanics are not affected by the choice of units. The definitions of all derived units in terms of the three base
units are therefore the same in both systems, and there is an unambiguous one-to-one correspondence of derived
units:
(definition of velocity)
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(Newton's second law of motion)

(energy defined in terms of work)
(pressure defined as force per unit area)
(dynamic viscosity defined as shear stress per unit velocity gradient).
Thus, for example, the CGS unit of pressure, barye, is related to the CGS base units of length, mass, and time in
the same way as the SI unit of pressure, pascal, is related to the SI base units of length, mass, and time:
1 unit of pressure = 1 unit of force/(1 unit of length)2 = 1 unit of mass/(1 unit of length(1 unit of time)2)
1 Ba = 1 g/(cms2)
1 Pa = 1 kg/(ms2).
Expressing a CGS derived unit in terms of the SI base units, or vice versa, requires combining the scale factors
that relate the two systems:
1 Ba = 1 g/(cms2) = 10-3 kg/(10-2 ms2) = 10-1 kg/(ms2) = 10-1 Pa.
Definitions and conversion factors of CGS units in mechanics
CGS unit
CGS unit
abbreviation
Symbol
length, position
L, x
mass
gram
1/1000 of kilogram = 103 kg
time
second
1 second
=1s
velocity
centimetre per second
cm/s
cm/s
= 102 m/s
force
dyne
dyn
g cm / s2
= 105 N
energy
erg
erg
g cm2 / s2
= 107 J
power
erg per second
erg/s
g cm2 / s3
= 107 W
pressure
barye
Ba
g / (cm s2)
= 101 Pa
dynamic viscosity
poise
g / (cm s)
= 101 Pas
wavenumber
kayser
cm1
cm1
= 100 m1
centimetre
cm
Definition
Equivalent
in SI units
Quantity
1/100 of metre
= 102 m
Derivation of CGS units in electromagnetism

CGS approach to electromagnetic units
The conversion factors relating electromagnetic units in the CGS and SI systems are much more involved so
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much so that formulas for physical laws of electromagnetism are adjusted depending on what system of units
one uses. This illustrates the fundamental difference in the ways the two systems are built:
In SI, the unit of electric current is chosen[2] to be 1 ampere (A). It is a base unit of the SI system, along
with meter, kilogram, and second. The ampere is not dimensionally equivalent to any combination of
other base units, so electromagnetic laws written in SI require an additional constant of proportionality
(see Vacuum permittivity) to bridge electromagnetic units to kinematic units. All other electric and
magnetic units are derived from these four base units using the most basic common definitions: for
example, electric charge q is defined as current I multiplied by time t,
,
therefore unit of electric charge, coulomb (C), is defined as 1 C = 1 As.
CGS system avoids introducing new base units and instead derives all electric and magnetic units from
centimeter, gram, and second based on the physics laws that relate electromagnetic phenomena to
mechanics.
Alternate derivations of CGS units in electromagnetism

Electromagnetic relationships to length, time and mass may be derived by equally appealing methods. Two of
them rely on the forces observed on charges. Two fundamental laws relate (independently of each other) the
electric charge or its rate of change (electric current) to a mechanical quantity such as force. They can be
written[3] in system-independent form as follows:
The first is Coulomb's law,
, which describes the electrostatic force F between electric
charges q and , separated by distance d. Here kC is a constant which depends on how exactly the unit
of charge is derived from the CGS base units.
The second is Ampre's force law,
, which describes the magnetic force F per unit
length L between currents I and I' flowing in two long parallel wires, separated by distance d. Since
I = q / t and
, the constant kA also depends on how the unit of charge is derived from the
CGS base units.

Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism relates these two laws to each other. It states that the ratio of
2
proportionality constants kC and kA must obey kC / kA = c , where c is the speed of light. Therefore, if one
derives the unit of charge from the Coulomb's law by setting kC = 1, it is obvious that the Ampre's force law
2
will contain a prefactor 2 / c . Alternatively, deriving the unit of current, and therefore the unit of charge, from
the Ampre's force law by setting kA
= 1 or kA = 1 / 2, will lead to a constant prefactor in the Coulomb's law.
Indeed, both of these mutually-exclusive approaches have been practiced by the users of CGS system, leading
to the two independent and mutually-exclusive branches of CGS, described in the subsections below. However,
the freedom of choice in deriving electromagnetic units from the units of length, mass, and time is not limited to
the definition of charge. While the electric field can be related to the work performed by it on a moving electric
charge, the magnetic force is always perpendicular to the velocity of the moving charge, and thus the work
performed by the magnetic field on any charge is always zero. This leads to a choice between two laws of
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magnetism, each relating magnetic field to mechanical quantities and electric charge:
The first law describes the Lorentz force produced by a magnetic field B on a charge q moving with
velocity v:
The second describes the creation of a static magnetic field B by an electric current I of finite length dl at
a point displaced by a vector r, known as Biot-Savart law:
where r and
are the length and the unit vector in the direction of vector r.
These two laws can be used to derive Ampre's force law, resulting in the relationship:
Therefore, if the unit of charge is based on the Ampre's force law such that kA = 1, it is natural to derive the
unit of magnetic field by setting
. However, if it is not the case, a choice has to be made as to
which of the two laws above is a more convenient basis for deriving the unit of magnetic field.
Furthermore, if we wish to describe the electric displacement field D and the magnetic field H in a medium
other than a vacuum, we need to also define the constants 0 and 0, which are the vacuum permittivity and
and
, where
permeability, respectively. Then we have[3] (generally)
P and M are polarization density and magnetization vectors. The factors and are rationalization constants,
which are usually chosen to be 4kC0, a dimensionless quantity. If = = 1, the system is said to be
"rationalized":[4] the laws for systems of spherical geometry contain factors of 4 (e.g. point charges), those of
cylindrical geometry factors of 2 (e.g. wires), and those of planar geometry contain no factors of (e.g.
parallel-plate capacitors). However, the original CGS system used = = 4, or, equivalently, kC0 = 1.
Therefore, Gaussian, ESU, and EMU subsystems of CGS (described below) are not rationalized.
Various extensions of the CGS system to electromagnetism

The table below shows the values of the above constants used in some common CGS subsystems:
kC
Electrostatic[3]
CGS
(ESU, esu, or
stat-)
c2
c2
c2
Electromagnetic[3]
CGS
(EMU, emu, or
ab-)
c2
c2
Gaussian[3] CGS
c1
c2
c1
c1
system
HeavisideLorentz[3] CGS
'
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SI
The constant b in SI system is a unit-based scaling factor defined as:

.
Also, note the following correspondence of the above constants to those in Jackson[3] and Leung[5]:
kC = k1 = kE
kA = k2 = kE / c2
L = k3 = kF
In system-independent form, Maxwell's equations in vacuum can be written as:[3][5]
1
Note that of all these variants, only in Gaussian and Heaviside-Lorentz systems L equals c
rather than 1.
As a result, vectors and
of an electromagnetic wave propagating in vacuum have the same units and are
equal in magnitude in these two variants of CGS.
Electrostatic units (ESU)

Main article: Electrostatic units
In one variant of the CGS system, Electrostatic units (ESU), charge is defined via the force it exerts on other
charges, and current is then defined as charge per time. It is done by setting the Coulomb force constant
kC = 1, so that Coulomb's law does not contain an explicit prefactor.

The ESU unit of charge, franklin (Fr), also known as statcoulomb or esu charge, is therefore defined as
follows:[6]
two equal point charges spaced 1 centimetre apart are said to be of 1 franklin each if the
electrostatic force between them is 1 dyne.
Therefore, in electrostatic CGS units, a franklin is equal to a centimetre times square root of dyne:
.
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The unit of current is defined as:

.
Dimensionally in the ESU CGS system, charge q is therefore equivalent to m1/2L3/2t1. Neither charge nor
current are therefore an independent dimension of physical quantity in ESU CGS. This reduction of units is an
application of the Buckingham theorem.
ESU notation
All electromagnetic units in ESU CGS system that do not have proper names are denoted by a corresponding SI
name with an attached prefix "stat" or with a separate abbreviation "esu".[6]
Electromagnetic units (EMU)

In another variant of the CGS system, Electromagnetic units (EMU), current is defined via the force existing
between two thin, parallel, infinitely long wires carrying it, and charge is then defined as current multiplied by
time. (This approach was eventually used to define the SI unit of ampere as well). In the EMU CGS subsystem,
is done by setting the Ampere force constant kA = 1, so that Ampre's force law simply contains 2 as an
explicit prefactor (this prefactor 2 is itself a result of integrating a more general formulation of Ampre's law
over the length of the infinite wire).
The EMU unit of current, biot (Bi), also known as abampere or emu current, is therefore defined as
follows:[6]
The biot is that constant current which, if maintained in two straight parallel conductors of infinite
length, of negligible circular cross-section, and placed one centimetre apart in vacuo, would
produce between these conductors a force equal to two dynes per centimetre of length.
Therefore, in electromagnetic CGS units, a biot is equal to a square root of dyne:
.
The unit of charge in CGS EMU is:
.
Dimensionally in the EMU CGS system, charge q is therefore equivalent to m1/2L1/2. Neither charge nor current
are therefore an independent dimension of physical quantity in EMU CGS.
EMU notation
All electromagnetic units in EMU CGS system that do not have proper names are denoted by a corresponding SI
name with an attached prefix "ab" or with a separate abbreviation "emu".[6]
Relations between ESU and EMU units
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The ESU and EMU subsystems of CGS are connected by the fundamental relationship kC
/ kA = c2 (see
above), where c = 29,979,245,800 31010 is the speed of light in vacuum in cm/s. Therefore, the ratio of the
corresponding primary electrical and magnetic units (e.g. current, charge, voltage, etc. quantities
proportional to those that enter directly into Coulomb's law or Ampre's force law) is equal either to c-1 or c:[6]
and
.
Units derived from these may have ratios equal to higher powers of c, for example:
.
Other variants
There were at various points in time about half a dozen systems of electromagnetic units in use, most based on
the CGS system.[7] These also include Gaussian units, and Heaviside-Lorentz units.
Further complicating matters is the fact that some physicists and engineers in the United States use hybrid units,
such as volts per centimetre for electric field. In fact, this is essentially the same as the SI unit system, by the
variant to translate all lengths used into cm, e.g. 1 m = 100 cm.
Electromagnetic units in various CGS systems
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Conversion of SI units in electromagnetism to ESU, EMU, and Gaussian subsystems of CGS[6]

c = 29,979,245,800 31010
Quantity
Symbol SI unit
ESU unit
EMU unit
Gaussian unit
electric charge
1C
= (10-1 c) statC
= (10-1) abC
= (10-1 c) Fr
electric current
1A
= (10-1 c) statA
= (10-1) abA
= (10-1 c) Frs-1
electric potential
voltage
1V
= (108 c-1) statV
= (108) abV
= (108 c-1) statV
electric field
1 V/m = (106 c-1) statV/cm
magnetic induction
1T
magnetic field strength
1 A/m = (4 10-3 c) statA/cm = (4 10-3) Oe
magnetic dipole moment
1 Am = (103 c) statAcm
magnetic flux
resistance
= (104 c-1) statT
= (106) abV/cm = (106 c-1) statV/cm

= (104) G
= (104) G
= (4 10-3) Oe
= (103) abAcm = (103) erg/G
1 Wb
= (108 c-1) statTcm
= (108) Mw
= (108) Gcm
= (109 c-2) s/cm
= (109) ab
= (109 c-2) s/cm
resistivity
1 m = (1011 c-2) s
capacitance
1F
= (10-9 c2) cm
= (10-9) abF
= (10-9 c2) cm
inductance
1H
= (109 c-2) cm-1s-2
= (109) abH
= (109 c-2) cm-1s2
= (1011) abcm = (1011 c-2) s
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In this table, c = 29,979,245,800 31010 is the speed of light in vacuum in the CGS units of cm/s.
One can think of the SI value of the Coulomb constant kC as:
This explains why SI to ESU conversions involving factors of c2 lead to significant simplifications of the ESU
units, such as 1 statF = 1 cm and 1 stat = 1 s/cm: this is the consequence of the fact that in ESU system kC=1.
For example, a centimetre of capacitance is the capacitance between a sphere of radius 1 cm in vacuum and
infinity. The capacitance C between two concentric spheres of radii R and r in ESU CGS system is:
.
By taking the limit as R goes to infinity we see C equals r.
Physical constants in CGS units

Commonly used physical constants in CGS units[8]
Constant
Symbol
Value
Atomic mass unit
1.660 538 782 1024 g

9.274 009 15 1021 erg/G (EMU, Gaussian)
Bohr magneton
Bohr radius
a0
5.291 772 0859 109 cm
Boltzmann constant
1.380 6504 1016 erg/K
Electron mass
me
Elementary charge
2.780 278 00 1010 statAcm2 (ESU)
9.109 382 15 1028 g

4.803 204 27 1010 Fr (ESU, Gaussian)
1.602 176 487 1020 abC (EMU)
Fine-structure constant 1/137 7.297 352 570 103

Gravitational constant
6.674 28 108 cm3/(gs2)
6.626 068 85 1027 ergs
Planck constant
Speed of light in vacuum
1.054 5716 1027 ergs

c
2.997 924 58 1010 cm/s
Pro and contra
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While the absence of explicit prefactors in some CGS subsystems simplifies some theoretical calculations, it has
the disadvantage that sometimes the units in CGS are hard to define through experiment. Also, lack of unique
unit names leads to a great confusion: thus 15 emu may mean either 15 abvolt, or 15 emu units of electric
dipole moment, or 15 emu units of magnetic susceptibility, sometimes (but not always) per gram or per mole. On
the other hand, SI starts with a unit of current, the ampere, which is easier to determine through experiment, but
which requires extra prefactors in the electromagnetic equations. With its system of unique named units, SI also
removes any confusion in usage: 1 ampere is a fixed quantity of a specific variable, and so are 1 henry and 1
ohm.
A key virtue of the Gaussian CGS system is that electric and magnetic fields have the same units, 40 is
replaced by 1, and the only dimensional constant appearing in the equations is c, the speed of light. The
Heaviside-Lorentz system has these desirable properties as well (with 0 equaling 1), but it is a "rationalized"
system (as is SI) in which the charges and fields are defined in such a way that there are many fewer factors of
4 appearing in the formulas, and it is in Heaviside-Lorentz units that the Maxwell equations take their simplest
form.
In SI, and other rationalized systems (e.g. Heaviside-Lorentz), the unit of current was chosen such that
electromagnetic equations concerning charged spheres contain 4, those concerning coils of current and straight
wires contain 2 and those dealing with charged surfaces lack entirely, which was the most convenient choice
for electrical-engineering applications. In those fields where formulas concerning spheres dominate (for
example, astronomy), it has been argued that the non-rationalized CGS system can be somewhat more
convenient notationally.
In fact, in certain fields, specialized unit systems are used to simplify formulas even further than either SI or
CGS, by using some system of natural units. For example, the particle physics community uses a system where
every quantity is expressed by only one unit, the eV, with lengths, times, etc. all converted into eV's by inserting
factors of c and . This unit system is very convenient for particle-physics calculations, but would be
impractical in other contexts.
See also
Scientific units named after people
SI electromagnetism units
SI units
Units of measurement
References and notes

1. ^ Hallock, William; Wade, Herbert Treadwell (1906). Outlines of the evolution of weights and measures
and the metric system (http://books.google.com/?id=NVZKAAAAMAAJ) . New York: The Macmillan
Co. p. 200. http://books.google.com/?id=NVZKAAAAMAAJ.
2. ^ For historical reasons, 1 ampere is chosen such that the magnetic force exerted by two infinitely long,
thin, parallel wires 1 m apart and carrying this current is exactly 2107 N/m. This definition makes all SI
electromagnetic units consistent (up to some integer powers of 10) with the EMU CGS system described
in further sections.
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Jackson, John David (1999). Classical Electrodynamics (3rd ed.). New York: Wiley.
pp. 775784. ISBN 0-471-30932-X.
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4. ^ Cardarelli, F. (2004). Encyclopaedia of Scientific Units, Weights and Measures: Their SI Equivalences
and Origins (http://books.google.com/?id=6KCx8Ww75VkC) (2nd ed.). Springer. p. 20.
ISBN 1-8523-3682-X. http://books.google.com/?id=6KCx8Ww75VkC.
5. ^ a b Leung, P. T. (2004). "A note on the 'system-free' expressions of Maxwell's equations". European
Journal of Physics 25 (2): N1N4. doi:10.1088/0143-0807/25/2/N01 (http://dx.doi.org
/10.1088%2F0143-0807%2F25%2F2%2FN01) .
6. ^ a b c d e f Cardarelli, F. (2004). Encyclopaedia of Scientific Units, Weights and Measures: Their SI
Equivalences and Origins (http://books.google.com/?id=6KCx8Ww75VkC) (2nd ed.). Springer.
pp. 2025. ISBN 1-8523-3682-X. http://books.google.com/?id=6KCx8Ww75VkC.
7. ^ Bennett, L. H.; Page, C. H.; and Swartzendruber, L. J. (1978). "Comments on units in magnetism".
Journal of Research of the National Bureau of Standards 83 (1): 912.
8. ^ A.P. French, Edwind F. Taylor (1978). An Introduction to Quantum Physics. W.W. Norton &
Company.
General literature
Griffiths, David J. (1999). "Appendix C: Units". Introduction to Electrodynamics (3rd ed.). Prentice Hall.
ISBN 0-13-805326-X.
Jackson, John D. (1999). "Appendix on Units and Dimensions". Classical Electrodynamics (3rd ed.).
Wiley. ISBN 0-471-30932-X.
Littlejohn, Robert (Fall 2007). "Gaussian, SI and Other Systems of Units in Electromagnetic Theory"
(http://bohr.physics.berkeley.edu/classes/221/0708/notes/emunits.pdf) (pdf). Physics 221A, University of
California, Berkeley lecture notes. http://bohr.physics.berkeley.edu/classes/221/0708/notes/emunits.pdf.
Retrieved 2008-05-06.
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