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Probably the earliest known forms of units of measurement are dated back in the 4th Or 3rd millennium BC. These forms of units of measurements were famous among the Mesopotamian civilisation, Egyptian civilisation and Indus Valley civilisation. During these early days the units were used for denoting shape, size of clothes, bartering items and food , etc.
The unit of measurements were made for any quantity of a thing with physical properties to be measured.
Base units and derived units.
A base unit or a fundamental unit is the unit used for the measurement of base quantities. Base quantities are those quantities which can be conventionally chosen as a subset of some physical quantities.
Derived units can be defined as those units of measurement which are formed due to the multiplication and division of the base units without and fixed numerical factors.
Types of units of measurement list
The different types of units in the units of measurement list are :-
- CGS system units.
- FPS system units.
- MKS system units.
- SI units.
CGS units
The form of this is the centimetre-gram-second system of units. This metric system uses the unit of centimetre to denote the distance/length , gram is used as the basic unit to denote mass /weight and seconds is used for denoting time. There are other units of measurement in the system too but some way or the other they get derived from these few units only. The CGS system can also be used to denote electromagnetism, but using a few extensions.
This system of measurements was proposed by Carl Friedrich Gauss. He was a German mathematician and he proposed this idea back in 1832 . It is based on these units of mass, length and time. Later some. Modifications were done by James Clerk Maxwell and William Thomson.
FPS Units
The full form of this is the foot-pound-second system of units. This metric system uses foot as the standard unit of length, pound is set as the unit for denoting mass and force. Lastly ,second is used to denote time.
This used to be the most used unit system for technical publications in England only till the 20th Century. This system was proposed and popularised by William Stroud and hence it is sometimes named after him as the Stroud system.
MKS units
The full form of this system is meter, kilogram and second. This metric system is used to denote the measurement of physical quantities. Here meter is used for denoting length, kilogram is used for denoting mass. It was known for setting the base for the SI units before they were redefined.
The use of MKS units was formalized in 1889 in the General Conference of Weights and Measures. Giovani Giorgi had proposed this system in Italy in 1901. After the addition of ampere in these units the system was widely regarded as the MKSA system.
SI units
The longer abbreviation of the units is International System of Units. It’s the most recent and modern type of metric system used throughout the world. It is often used as the standard unit of measurement . It mainly contains 7 units of measurement , which are :-
- Second (s) is used as a unit to denote the measurement of time.
- Metre (m) is the unit to denote the measurement of length .
- For measuring mass, kilogram (kg) is used as a unit .
- Electric current is measured by the unit of ampere.
- For measuring the temperature kelvin (k) is used as a unit.
- Mole is the unit used to denote the amount of substance.
- The latest entry was of candela, which is used for measuring candela (cd).
Conclusion
The units of measurement are very necessary for the understanding of measurement of the quantities. The unit of measurement table can be found and be used for the better understanding of the units. Modernisation in the old metric systems are done for the better measurement of quantities. There are 4 main metric systems which are somewhat used on an international basis.
