The centimetre-gram-second system (abbreviated CGS or cgs) is a metric system of physical units based on centimetre as the unit of length, gram as a unit of mass, and second as a unit of time. All CGS mechanical units are unambiguously derived from these three base units, but there are several different ways of extending the CGS system to cover electromagnetism.
The CGS system has been largely supplanted by the MKS system, based on metre, kilogra...
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The centimetre-gram-second system (abbreviated CGS or cgs) is a metric system of physical units based on centimetre as the unit of length, gram as a unit of mass, and second as a unit of time. All CGS mechanical units are unambiguously derived from these three base units, but there are several different ways of extending the CGS system to cover electromagnetism.
The CGS system has been largely supplanted by the MKS system, based on metre, kilogram, and second. MKS was in turn extended and replaced by the International System of Units (SI). The latter adopts the three base units of MKS, plus the ampere, mole, candela and kelvin. In many fields of science and engineering, SI is the only system of units in use. However, there remain certain subfields where CGS is prevalent.
In measurements of purely mechanical systems (involving units of length, mass, force, energy, pressure, etc.), the differences between CGS and SI are straightforward and rather trivial; the unit-conversion factors are...
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