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A unit of measurement, or unit of measure, is a definite magnitude of a quantity, defined and adopted by convention or by law, that is used as a standard for measurement of the same kind of quantity. [1] Any other quantity of that kind can be expressed as a multiple of the unit of measurement. [2] For example, a length is a physical quantity.
The first group of metric units are those that are at present defined as units within the International System of Units (SI). In its most restrictive interpretation, this is what may be meant when the term metric unit is used. The unit one (1) is the unit of a quantity of dimension one. It is the neutral element of any system of units. [2]
The unit of time should be the second; the unit of length should be either the metre or a decimal multiple of it; and the unit of mass should be the gram or a decimal multiple of it. Metric systems have evolved since the 1790s, as science and technology have evolved, in providing a single universal measuring system.
The concept of naming units of measure after noteworthy scientists was subsequently used for other units. In 1873, another committee of the BAAS (which also included Maxwell and Thomson) tasked with "the Selection and Nomenclature of Dynamical and Electrical Units" recommended using the cgs system of units .
Conversion of units is the conversion of the unit of measurement in which a quantity is expressed, typically through a multiplicative conversion factor that changes the unit without changing the quantity. This is also often loosely taken to include replacement of a quantity with a corresponding quantity that describes the same physical property.
The systems formalised the concept of a collection of related units called a coherent system of units. In a coherent system, base units combine to define derived units without extra factors. [4]: 2 For example, using metre per second is coherent in a system that uses metre for length and second for time, but kilometre per hour is not coherent.
Metrology is a wide reaching field, but can be summarized through three basic activities: the definition of internationally accepted units of measurement, the realisation of these units of measurement in practice, and the application of chains of traceability (linking measurements to reference standards).
1792 – Initiation of a decimal system of measurement by the French Revolutionary Government; 1799 – The Metre des archives and kilogram des archives become the standards for the metric system. 1861 – Concept of unit coherence introduced by Maxwell – the base units were the centimetre, gram and second.