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Electrical units of measure

Here’s a handy chart of the units of measure we use all the time for electronic quantities.

electrical units of measure

Note that the unit itself is lower case, the person it is named for is, of course, cap/lower case, and the unit symbol — which is used behind a numerical quantity — is usually upper case. The chart is an expansion of one found at http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/quant.htm I’ve added hyperlinks for biographies of the people for whom these units of measure are named. The hyperlinks to more about the quantities are mostly from the original chart.

Quantity Usual Unit Unit Named For Unit
Symbol Symbol
Voltage V volt Alessandro Volta (1745–1827) V
Current I ampere André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836) A
Charge Q coulomb Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1736 – 1806) C
Resistance R ohm Georg Simon Ohm (1789 – 1854)
Capacitance C farad Michael Faraday (1791 – 1867) F
Inductance L henry Joseph Henry (1797–1878) H
Reactance X ohm Georg Simon Ohm (1789 – 1854)
Impedance Z ohm Georg Simon Ohm (1789 – 1854)
Power P watt James Watt (1736 – 1819) W
Energy E joule James Prescott Joule (1818–1889) J
Time t second   – s
Frequency f hertz Heinrich Hertz  (1857 —1894) Hz

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