Talk:MKS units

Modern definition
Does the BIPM or any other authority provide a modern definition of the mks system of units? If the mks system of units never had a governing body to rule on a standard definition then the list of mks units might depend on different conventions and different times. For example a "cycle" may or may not have been a unit in the mks system prior to its exclusion from the International System of Units. At least one journal article in a peer-reviewed journal uses the term "cycles/second". See p. 347 of "Magnetic Formulae Expressed in the M. K. S. System of Units" by A. E. Kennelly in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society v. 76, p. 343 (1936) --John David Wright 20:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * If I'm not mistaken (& I wouldn't be too greatly surprised if I were), the SI is an mks system (the metre, kilogram & second are base units in the SI) and thus the BIPM does provide a modern definition. J IM ptalk·cont 16:19, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

mksc units, addition of charge to the MKS system
My old physics book (Sears and Zemansky 1964), after moving beyond Newtonian mechanics into electrostatics, introduces the mksc units [in lower case], cf page 742:
 * "The mksc unit of mutual inductance is 1 volt/(amp/sec). This is called 1 henry in honor of Joseph Henry".

Where the volt is defined in terms of the "potential energy per unit charge" (cf p 569). When I interrogate wikipedia "mksc" does not come up to physics articles. Anybody out there know what's going on with respect to the addition of "charge" (c) to the mks unit system? Thanks, Bill

The electrical units can not be derived solely from the metre, the kilogramme and the second---they need some eletrical reference---hence the addition of the modern unit of charge, the coulomb. I have seen also m.k.s.a. including the ampere, the coloumb-per-second.

The fourth unit
Giorgi did not specify that the ampere should be the additional unit. He proposed that a fourth unit, an electromagnetic one, be added. He did not suggest that this should be a unit drawn from a field of engineering; please do not be misled by a false friend. The ampere is a unit from the field of electromagnetism; it is not and was not specifically an engineering or technological unit. NebY (talk) 11:42, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * ampere is the SI unit of electric current, not only in the field of electromagnetism, read electrotechnology, fields are very various: electricity, electronics, electromagnetism, telegraph, telephone, electric power, etc. The fourth unit after the tree fundamental units is ampere. Trackteur (talk) 11:59, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Describing the ampere as a unit of electrotechnology is akin to describing the metre as a unit of building construction. The ampere was indeed eventually chosen to provide the fourth unit, but that choice came long after Giorgi's original proposal and was not inherent to it or an inevitable consequence of it. There were other candidates, such as the volt - yes, SI could have been built on an MKSV system instead, still in accordance with Giorgi's proposal.
 * I should add that the MKS system pre-dated Giorgi and Giovanni Giorgi is misleading in this respect. NebY (talk) 12:42, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you, now with this chronological explanation I realized my mistake. Regards. Trackteur (talk) 13:42, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Table? Where?
The text says "An incomplete list of the base and derived units appears below." It isn't there now. Where did it go? SkoreKeep (talk) 20:56, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 7 January 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to MKS units. Consensus that this name is better per WP:CRITERIA than both the proposed name and the current name. No consensus on the other proposed moves. (non-admin closure) FOARP (talk) 14:31, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

MKS system of units → Metre–kilogram–second system of units – collision with redirect&#32;Stephan Leeds (talk) 13:16, 6 January 2024 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). – robertsky (talk) 13:32, 7 January 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal (talk) 16:03, 24 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I prefer the consistency proposed by Stephan Leeds. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 14:53, 7 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Alternative suggestion: (1) While it's true that the proposed move would be more WP:CONSISTENT with Centimetre–gram–second system of units and Foot–pound–second system of units, this same consistency could come from instead moving those to the titles CGS system of units and FPS system of units. The abbreviated titles are WP:CONCISE, a WP:COMMONNAME (it's a little hard to compare, but here's Google Ngrams, leaving off "metre" because of spelling variation), and would have a slight benefit in MOS:COMMONALITY (since the US spelling is meter). But I don't have a strong preference for abbreviating. My comment above was mostly just that this should be discussed. (2) The International System of Units doesn't need to be consistent with those three, and indeed it already differs by capitalization. It also differs from Metric system, Imperial units and United States customary units. SilverLocust 💬 18:04, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I have no objection to this alternative path to the same end. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 18:14, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Physics has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 19:05, 7 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Keep MKS. As a physicist I cannot remember ever using anything except MKS, and occasionally CGS when teaching or in publications. I suggest using CGS units, the "system of" is superfluous .I have no idea about FPS units, you probably have to post to an engineering project page.
 * This would then be consistent with Hartree atomic units, astronomical system of units (probably should also lose the system of) and the more extensive list in natural units. (There may be more.)
 * Note: SI is a different beast as it includes terms such as mole and candela and definitions of the units in terms of measursables; MKS is a subset of SI. Ldm1954 (talk) 22:01, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I guess the page also could be read by non-physicists and for these readers "MKS" has no meaning, its just an unexplained acronym. That is why I prefer "Metre–kilogram–second (MKS) system of units" Johnjbarton (talk) 18:51, 19 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Move to MKS units, per LDM's suggestion, for all the reasons given. PianoDan (talk) 16:54, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I likewise have no objection to MKS units. SilverLocust 💬 18:36, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Move to MKS units per above. I oppose the original move request as unnecessary and not the common name. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 15:25, 19 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Alternative suggestion I think a version of the full name and abbreviation makes sense
 * Metre–kilogram–second (MKS) system of units
 * Centimetre–gram–second (CGS) system of units
 * Foot–pound–second (FPS) system of units
 * International System of Units (SI)
 * The last one is an official name. Johnjbarton (talk) 18:17, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Comment: Let's not forget Metre–tonne–second system of units. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 22:44, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

MKS system of units
It is being advocated by @Dondervogel2 in edits that independent of the renaming discussion, "system of units" needs to be used for grammatical reasons. I am listing here and have cross-listed at WP:Physics since that is where many of the relevant people are. (My personal opinion is that it is just "MKS units", and "system of" is irrelevant: meters, kilograms and seconds are units.) Ldm1954 (talk) 03:04, 3 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I think a couple of example sentences each way would help. Johnjbarton (talk) 04:10, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I am not saying "MKS system of units" is appropriate (I am not saying it is inappropriate either - I have no opinion on that issue). My opinion is that the article should be grammatically correct. For example this edit reverted an edit introducing a grammatical error. When my edit was reverted I tried an alternative route to grammatical correctness. My preference would be to restore a previous stable version and then discuss here what changes are needed to it to address the name change. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 08:26, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I learnt to use abbreviations as if they were the full term, excepting "an" sometimes. Hence "meter, kilogram, and second units" is identical to "MKS units", and both are grammatically correct. The "system of" is superfluous. As was discussed, we teach students to use "MKS units", just that.
 * I have not done major work on this article, but I did revert edits of this issue which I believe should have been discussed first as they differ from the concensus. Ldm1954 (talk) 08:53, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Would you write "The meter, kilogram, and second units is a physical system of measurement"? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 09:04, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * This edit demonstrates you are not interested in gaining consensus for your edits, so further discussion here is pointless. I shall remove this page from my watch list. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 09:12, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * SI is the universal abbreviation for the International System of Units. Wikipedia cannot logically take the position that SI is the abbreviation for “International Units” so I don’t support the strict position proposed by Ldm1954.
 * When we write “MKS Units” we are talking about one or a small number of the units contained within the MKS system; but when we write “MKS system of units” we are are talking about all the MKS units that define the MKS system, in the same way that we write about SI the International System of Units. Dolphin ( t ) 12:36, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * As a quick clarification, I just reverted this article back to what it was before in terms of how MKS was used. (I did add a couple of sentences to expand as suggested by Johnjbarton, but that is separate.)
 * N.B., "SI units" is the abbreviation for "Système international d'unités", which we translate to International System of units. The usage of SI and MKS are consistent. Ldm1954 (talk) 13:01, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * That distinction isn't reflected in any source that I can find. Rather the opposite, actually: the terms appear interchangeable. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:35, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I edited the lede based on the "Requested move" discussion, in a way that I believe addresses the grammar and common use issues. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:09, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The lede shouldn't start off with "...is the term for", per WP:NOTDICT. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:26, 4 March 2024 (UTC)