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Another three base units (for temperature, amount of substance, and luminous intensity) were added later. [1] The early metric systems defined a unit of weight as a base unit, while the SI defines an analogous unit of mass. In everyday use, these are mostly interchangeable, but in scientific contexts the difference matters.
The SI base units form a set of mutually independent dimensions as required by dimensional analysis commonly employed in science and technology. [ citation needed ] The names and symbols of SI base units are written in lowercase, except the symbols of those named after a person, which are written with an initial capital letter.
The gram (originally gramme; [1] SI unit symbol g) is a unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one thousandth of a kilogram.. Originally defined as of 1795 as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to the cube of the hundredth part of a metre [1 cm 3], and at the temperature of melting ice", [2] the defining temperature (≈0 °C) was later changed to 4 ...
A base unit is a unit adopted for expressing a base quantity. A derived unit is used for expressing any other quantity, and is a product of powers of base units. For example, in the modern metric system, length has the unit metre and time has the unit second, and speed has the derived unit metre per second.
The centimetre–gram–second system of units (CGS) is based on three base units: centimetre, gram and second. Its subsystems (CGS-ESU, CGS-EMU and CGS-Gaussian) have different defining equations for their systems of quantities for defining electromagnetic quantities and hence the associated units, with CGS-Gaussian units being selected from each of the other two subsystems.
Conversions between units in the metric system are defined by their prefixes (for example, 1 kilogram = 1000 grams, 1 milligram = 0.001 grams) and are thus not listed in this article. Exceptions are made if the unit is commonly known by another name (for example, 1 micron = 10 −6 metre).
The choice of base dimensions is not entirely arbitrary, because they must form a basis: they must span the space, and be linearly independent. For example, F, L, M form a set of fundamental dimensions because they form a basis that is equivalent to T, L, M: the former can be expressed as [F = LM/T 2 ], L, M, while the latter can be expressed ...
An overview of ranges of mass. To help compare different orders of magnitude, the following lists describe various mass levels between 10 −67 kg and 10 52 kg. The least massive thing listed here is a graviton, and the most massive thing is the observable universe.