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From: larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Tesla vs gauss, and other obscure units
Summary: Arcane units...
Message-ID: <3484@kitty.UUCP>
Date: 4 Nov 89 02:29:40 GMT
References: <30339@buckaroo.mips.COM> <1914@sactoh0.UUCP> <1989Nov2.024305.10583@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, NY
Lines: 25

In article <1989Nov2.024305.10583@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> In article <30542@buckaroo.mips.COM> vaso@mips.COM (Vaso Bovan) writes:
> >For bonus points, explain why the CGS electromagnetic unit of capacitance
> >is the gigafarad.
> 
> Now *there's* a filter capacitor!

	Yup, that's a pretty large unit.  Actually, I've not heard of the
term gigafarad, although the CGS emu unit of the abfarad would be 10^9
farads.  I suspect that emu folks who deal in abvolts, abamperes, abohms,
and abcoulombs would prefer to stay with abfarads instead of gigafarads,
though.

	Now, for a unit that is truly bizarre, consider the reciprocal of
capacitance, referred to as "elastance", which is measured in "darafs".
I kid you not.

	For those Net readers who deal with purchasing departments, for
some fun, next time you need a small ceramic disc capcitor, specify
the capacitor value in elastance using the unit of gigadaraf. :-)

<> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp.
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