Page:A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism - Volume 1.djvu/41



1.] expression of a Quantity consists of two factors or components. One of these is the name of a certain known quantity of the same kind as the quantity to be expressed, which is taken as a standard of reference. The other component is the number of times the standard is to be taken in order to make up the required quantity. The standard quantity is technically called the Unit, and the number is called the Numerical Value of the quantity.

There must be as many different units as there are different kinds of quantities to be measured, but in all dynamical sciences it is possible to define these units in terms of the three fundamental units of Length, Time, and Mass. Thus the units of area and of volume are defined respectively as the square and the cube whose sides are the unit of length.

Sometimes, however, we find several units of the same kind founded on independent considerations. Thus the gallon, or the volume of ten pounds of water, is used as a unit of capacity as well as the cubic foot. The gallon may be a convenient measure in some cases, but it is not a systematic one, since its numerical relation to the cubic foot is not a round integral number.

2.] In framing a mathematical system we suppose the fundamental units of length, time, and mass to be given, and deduce all the derivative units from these by the simplest attainable definitions.

The formulae at which we arrive must be such that a person Rh