Comparison of the mks and mksC Systems of Units for the Description of Both Dynamic and Electromagnetic Quantities

The mks System is capable of making a concise description of the units of all dynamical variables in terms of the three fundamental quantities of distance (m), inertial mass (kg) and time (s). It is shown in Table 1 how these units can be represented by three-dimensional vectors in which the exponents of each of the fundamental units are located in the respective three positions. The mks System cannot be used directly to define the units of quantities employed in electromagnetic laws, however. Instead, a new (mksC) system is developed in which the Coulomb is added as a fourth component. Many examples are given in Table 2, and a corresponding set of four-dimensional vectors is listed in each case. Because of a degree of freedom in the electromagnetic laws, the Coulomb can effectively be replaced by the Nm =J. This choice allows each of the electromagnetic quantities to be described exclusively in terms of the mks System (also shown in Table 2).

The key advantage of this approach is that it is completely compatible with the relativistic Uniform Scaling procedure which determines conversion factors for the numerical results obtained in one rest system to those of any other. There are two fundamental quantities required for this purpose, one for kinetic scaling (Q) and the other (S) for gravitational scaling. Since the conversion factors for m, kg and s are known in terms of Q and S, it is therefore possible to determine the corresponding factors for all electromagnetic quantities based on their adjusted mks composition.