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The constants listed here are known values of physical constants expressed in SI units; that is, physical quantities that are generally believed to be universal in nature and thus are independent of the unit system in which they are measured. Many of these are redundant, in the sense that they obey a known relationship with other physical ...
This is a list of well-known dimensionless quantities illustrating their variety of forms and applications. The tables also include pure numbers , dimensionless ratios, or dimensionless physical constants ; these topics are discussed in the article.
The first table lists the fundamental quantities used in the International System of Units to define the physical dimension of physical quantities for dimensional analysis. The second table lists the derived physical quantities .
Quantities, Units and Symbols in Physical Chemistry, also known as the Green Book, is a compilation of terms and symbols widely used in the field of physical chemistry. It also includes a table of physical constants , tables listing the properties of elementary particles , chemical elements , and nuclides , and information about conversion ...
The resulting system of units is known as the natural units, specifically regarding these five constants, Planck units. However, not all physical constants can be normalized in this fashion. For example, the values of the following constants are independent of the system of units, cannot be defined, and can only be determined experimentally: [22]
The same physical constant may move from one category to another as the understanding of its role deepens; this has notably happened to the speed of light, which was a class A constant (characteristic of light) when it was first measured, but became a class B constant (characteristic of electromagnetic phenomena) with the development of ...
The other constants (D excepted) govern the size, age, and expansion of the universe. These five constants must be estimated empirically. D, on the other hand, is necessarily a nonzero natural number and does not have an uncertainty. Hence most physicists would not deem it a dimensionless physical constant of the sort discussed in this entry.
A simple application of dimensional analysis to mathematics is in computing the form of the volume of an n-ball (the solid ball in n dimensions), or the area of its surface, the n-sphere: being an n-dimensional figure, the volume scales as x n, while the surface area, being (n − 1)-dimensional, scales as x n−1.