Physical Units and their Dimensions

Abstract

HAVING an interest in astrophysics, and chemistry, and telegraphy, for each of which some knowledge of electrical quantities and relations is required, more than I can carry in my head, a problem arises where to find it. It has been solved for my case by use of a single page appendix to a treatise on astronomy, which I keep handy with the page turned down, and which provides all that I need. I would not dream of remembering the complexities of nomenclature of an electrotechnical handbook. I observe that all this is now in the melting pot again, with its gilbert, gauss, oersted and maxwell and so on, under new international auspices of some kind, to judge by letters in NATURE which I do not comprehend even by guesswork. Do the technicians of the great industrial corporations really desire to cut themselves off from the general sciences, or do they merely ignore this activity as a play of professors?