Another question I am still confused by: how does your choice of units affect what types of dimensionless quantities you discover? Why do we have Ampere as a fundamental unit instead of just M,L,T? What do I lose? What do I lose if I reduce the number of dimensions even further? Are there other units that would be worth adding under some circumstances? What makes this non-arbitrary? Why is Temperature a different unit from Energy?
It’s pretty arbitrary, I tried to explain this point via a short fictional story here.
Gaussian units only has M,L,T base units, with nothing extra for electromagnetism.
There are practical tradeoffs involved in how many units you use—basically adding units gives you more error-checking at the expense of more annoyance. See the case of radians that I discuss here.
It’s pretty arbitrary, I tried to explain this point via a short fictional story here.
Gaussian units only has M,L,T base units, with nothing extra for electromagnetism.
There are practical tradeoffs involved in how many units you use—basically adding units gives you more error-checking at the expense of more annoyance. See the case of radians that I discuss here.