English

The vacuum impedance and unit systems

General Physics 2016-03-24 v2 Classical Physics

Abstract

In electromagnetism, the vacuum impedance Z0Z_0 is a universal constant, which is as important as the velocity of light cc in vacuum. Unfortunately, however, its significance does not seem to be appreciated so well and sometimes the presence itself is ignored. It is partly because in the Gaussian system of units, which has widely been used for long time, Z0Z_0 is a dimensionless constant and of unit magnitude. In this paper, we clarify that Z0Z_0 is a fundamental parameter in electromagnetism and plays major roles in the following scenes: reorganizing the structure of the electromagnetic formula in reference to the relativity; renormalizing the quantities toward natural unit systems starting from the SI unit system; and defining the magnitudes of electromagnetic units.

Cite

@article{arxiv.physics/0607056,
  title  = {The vacuum impedance and unit systems},
  author = {Masao Kitano},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0607056},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

6 pages, corrected typos