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On quantity calculus and units of measurement

This article has been downloaded from IOPscience. Please scroll down to see the full text article. 2008 Metrologia 45 134 (http://iopscience.iop.org/0026-1394/45/2/002) View the table of contents for this issue, or go to the journal homepage for more

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IOP PUBLISHING Metrologia 45 (2008) 134138

METROLOGIA doi:10.1088/0026-1394/45/2/002

On quantity calculus and units of measurement

W H Emerson
Le Trel, 47140 Auradou, France

Received 20 December 2007 Published 18 February 2008 Online at stacks.iop.org/Met/45/134 Abstract Quantity calculus is a name sometimes given to algebra as it is applied to quantities. It is assumed that the rules of algebra apply equally well to quantities as they do to numbers, and that they apply to units of measurement because they too are, by denition, quantities in their own right. This paper examines that assumption and concludes that, while it may be true of abstract quantities, it is not universally applicable to measurable quantities, whose practical units are not algebraic variables.

In 1942 Guggenheim [1] wrote, We are entitled to multiply together any two entities, provided our denition of multiplication is self-consistent and obeys the associative and distributive laws. . . It is likewise perfectly legitimate to multiply together any two physical entities, such as length and force. If the reader na vely asks: what, then, is the product of a foot and a pound?, I reply a foot-pound. . . If any reader. . . disputes my right to [multiply or divide physical quantities by one another] it would be protless for him to read any further. I confess to being just such a na ve reader, and would have liked to have seen him argue a justication of his assertion. On dimension Guggenheim wrote, Any physical quantity has the same dimension as the standard quantity [chosen as unit] of the same nature. In modern parlance his nature probably means kind, and I shall later make a distinction between nature and kind. He adds that dimensional analysis uses this fact either to verify that some formula is possible or even to show that, apart from an undetermined physical constant, it is the only possible one. In writing thus he is in effect asserting that quantities having the same dimension are of the same kind, for only if the quantities on either side of an equation are of the same kind can the formula be said to be possible. If identity of dimension were a sufcient test of identity of kind we would have to accept that a moment of force is a quantity of the same kind as a kinetic energy, that a pressure is of the same kind as a shear stress, that a heat capacity is of the same kind as an entropy and that a kinematic viscosity is of the same kind as a rate of area coverage (area/time). Differently dened quantities may have identical dimension and have units of the same name, but those units are of different kinds of quantities and so are themselves of different kinds.
0026-1394/08/020134+05$30.00

The formalized concept of a quantity is sometimes attributed to Maxwell [2], though he did not dene the term. He wrote about the expression of a quantity, the manner in which a quantity is expressed as consisting of two factors or components. One is the name of a certain known quantity of the same kind as the quantity to be expressed, which is to be taken as a standard of reference. The other component is the number of times the standard is to be taken in order to make up the required quantity. The rst, he said, is called the Unit; the second the Numerical Value. Maxwell thought of the unit, the magnitude of which is agreed by men, as invariant. He used coherent units, so that all his equations were between numerical values. The concept of a physical quantity having a character that is independent of any unit and of any mode of measurement, and the use of symbols for such quantities, not numerical values, came later. It was particularly promoted by Lodge [3]. Algebraic equations expressing the relations between quantities came to be regarded as being between abstractions unrelated to numbers or units. A value of an (abstract) quantity can be expressed, following Maxwell, as the product of another particular (abstract) quantity (a unit) of the same kind, and a numerical value. With the notation now commonly used, the quantity Qs value can be expressed as Q = {Q} [Q], (1)

where symbols in braces { } represent pure numbers and symbols in square brackets [ ] are units. If the quantity A is multiplied by quantity B to give a quantity C , then, expressing the quantities by their values, and assuming the units to be coherent, C = {C } [C ] = {A} [A] {B } [B ]
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2008 BIPM and IOP Publishing Ltd

On quantity calculus and units of measurement

or {C } = {A} {B } and [C ] = [A] [B ]. (4) Equation (2) might be called an example of quantity calculus, equation (3) is an expression of ordinary algebra, and equation (4) is an example of unit algebra. Maxwell did not, however, regard a quantity as abstract. His unit always had a name: that of a quantity physically talon. His realized by a standard in the sense of the French e quantity was a physically measurable quantity. It could be abstract in the sense that it might not have been realized; but it could actually or theoretically be realized and then be amenable to measurement. A particular legal speed limit is not physically realized in law, but represents a quantity that is realizable and measurable on the road. De Boer [4] drew attention to these two approaches to quantities and their algebra. The rst he called the abstract interpretation; the second he named the concrete interpretation. The abstract interpretation is that of the Systemists as he calls them, working with concepts such as physical quantity Q, unit [Q], both used in propositions and physical laws in the framework of a physical model. This mathematical formalism with (abstract) quantities and (abstract) units is now usually designated as quantity calculus. . . the names, symbols and units do not stand for concrete objects but indicate abstract mathematical concepts. In this view the units have exactly the same abstract character as the quantities with which they are associated and are thus subject to the same algebraic rules. According to de Boer the Realists, comprising metrologists, engineers or pragmatic experimentalists and embracing the concrete interpretation, work with objects, things, physical values corresponding to (concrete) physical quantities, measurement standards and physical laws, all properties of the real world. Their units are not the abstract quantities of the Systemists units but, like Maxwells, are [attributes of] what de Boer calls concrete unit standards. As he remarks, the word quantity is not much used by metrologists; they are concerned with particular quantities and refer to them by their individual names. These two views are rarely distinguished and are often confused. Guggenheim, in his remarks quoted above, states the Systemists view, applying it to any two entities, physical or otherwise, including units. Then he applies it, not to any, abstract units but to concrete, physically dened, invariable units, Realists units, as though they were abstract. In its chapter headed Quantities and Units, the International Vocabulary of Basic and General Terms in Metrology [5] (the VIM from its French title) denes only measurable quantity: an attribute of a phenomenon, body or substance that may be distinguished qualitatively and determined quantitatively. The term is thus identied with particular phenomena, bodies or substances. Then, in a Note, the VIM uncouples it, saying that the term may refer to a quantity in a general sense [such as] length, time, mass, temperature. . . Clearly the VIMs denition is of a Realists quantity, but the concept in the Note
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does not conform to the denition; it is a Systemists quantity. The VIM does not dene unit in an abstract sense; it denes unit of measurement: a particular [measurable] quantity, dened and adopted by convention, with which other [measurable] quantities of the same kind are compared in order to express their magnitudes relative to that quantity. The derived quantities dened in ISO 31 [6] are represented by symbols in algebraic equations: the equations used by the Systemists to express physical laws and propositions. The base units dened for the International System of Units (SI) [7] are Realists units and not of the same character as the abstract quantities of ISO 31s denitions. Algebra can be dened as the generalization of arithmetic to variable or abstract quantities represented by symbols [8]. That notwithstanding, the SI derives units from its concrete, Realists base units using the algebraic equations of the Systemists. The Systemists could apply the same algebraic rules to their units as to the quantities with which those units are associated because they are of exactly the same abstract character. They can be treated as algebraic variables. The units of a system of concrete, practical units such as those of the SI are not abstract and are not algebraic variables. Thus within the system they cannot meaningfully be inserted into algebraic equations and cannot be manipulated according to the rules of algebra. A requirement of identity of kind is that any ratio of the two quantities must be a pure number. That number is a dimensionless quantity, and a Realist would require it to have real physical signicance. The distance between the termini of a railway is a quantity of length, and the tracks gauge is of the same dimension and kind. No one would be the least inconvenienced if the rst was stated as, say, 400 kilometres 1 in., for they would not be quantities and the second as 4 ft, 8 2 that are normally compared. Their ratio is 278 726.22 to 1, a pure number, but that number would not be of interest to a railway engineer, and it is difcult to conceive that it might be of interest to anyone else. The two quantities may be of the same dimension and kind, but they are not of the same nature. The ratio of a time interval (temps in French) to a time as indicated by a clock or a calendar (French heure) is a pure number, but is generally of no practical signicance. The rst may be expressed as a number of seconds; the other (heure), though it is in fact the time that has elapsed since the datum moment of the calendar or clock, is expressed quite differently (year, month, day and clock time) to evaluate it. They are of different natures. If there are circumstances where a number that is the ratio of two quantities of the same kind has physical signicance, I shall say that they are of the same kind and nature. There may be a subjective element in judging whether the members of a pair of kindred quantities have a common nature, but generally it is obvious or can be shown on examination. If A , B and C are concrete quantities and [A ], [B ] and [C ] are practical, concrete measurement units of a system of units, we must accept that if A is the product of B and C A = B C = {B } {C } [A ], (5) 135

W H Emerson

or in words, the value of the product of the values of two concrete quantities, in a given system of measurable quantities and units, is the product of their numerical values and a unit of the new quantity, if such a realizable quantity can exist. That unit cannot be expressed as the product of the units of the factor quantities; it is a unit dened for the quantity and of the same kind. For example, if practical units of lengths and times are respectively metre and second, the unit of velocity is not the algebraic expression m s1 , it is metre per second or, more precisely, the average velocity of a point that travels one metre in one second. It has to be understood that that is what m s1 is intended to mean. The symbol is convenient shorthand, not an algebraic expression; if it were, then, according to the customary rules, the symbols for units would have to be written as above, in italics. It is impossible to conceive of the distance between the ends of a metre standard, a unit, being divided by the half period of a seconds pendulum, another unit. There is no physical model. Similarly the SI unit of area is not a metre squared. It is an area equal to that of a square of side one metre, written conventionally as m2 . When we assign the unit m s2 to accelerations we cannot pretend that it is a metre per square second, for seconds of that shape or any other do not exist. We mean that it is a change of a metre per second, per second. Indeed the unit was at one time always expressed in that way. The term per is not synonymous with divided by. It has been argued [9] that the unit of a relative length is the number one, because the unit m m1 reduces to one, as though a metre could be divided by itself. The ratio of the length of the circumference of a circle to that of its diameter, a relative length, is just the number . No one assigns to it a unit, be it one or any other. It is when we assign units to the more complex derived quantities that the concept of unit algebra most obviously becomes untenable [10]. Dynamic viscosity (abstract) is the ratio of shear stress in a Newtonian uid to the velocity gradient in the direction orthogonal to the plane of shear. Its unit must be a unit of stress, per unit of velocity per unit of length. The punctuation is important. By convention, using SI units it can be expressed as Pa (m s1 m1 )1 or N m2 (m s1 m1 )1 , or kg m s2 m2 (m s1 m1 )1 . If the units in those expressions are treated as algebraic variables (which they are not) the expressions reduce to respectively Pa s, N m2 s and kg m1 s1 . The rst is what the SI gives as its unit for dynamic viscosity; the last is what the SI Brochure calls the SI unit expressed in terms of SI base units. The last is also the dimension of dynamic viscosity with symbols for base units substituted for the symbols for the base dimensions. None is recognizable as a viscosity, though a unit is supposed to be an example of the quantity to which it is assigned. A kilogram per metre per second has no physical meaning in the context1 . Suppose that a thermally insulated rod of a homogeneous substance having an area of cross section equal to that of 6 squares of side one centimetre (conventionally written 6 cm2 ), and that is 10 centimetres long, transmits 12 watts when a temperature difference of 100 K is applied to its ends. The
1 It could, of course, have meaning in another context. It might, for example, be a unit for the linear and temporal rate of increase of mass of ice on a wire.

thermal conductivity of the material is then 12 10 (6 100) times that of material of one square cm section and one cm length that conducts one watt under a difference of temperature of one K, to be written conventionally as W cm cm2 K1 . The arithmetic operators are applied only to the numbers, not the units. If the unit were an algebraic expression it would reduce to W cm1 K1 . The result would then be in conformity with the SI Brochures unit, but it would not then be a unit of thermal conductivity. The SI does not recognize quantities that have indivisible units. They are not quantities of the system for which the SI provides units. It does not assign units to them, or recognize that they dene their own units, yet it assigns units to derivatives of those quantities. Nor does it recognize an event of a dened kind, such as the completion of a cycle, as a unit, but it assigns a unit to a frequency of such events; it is s1 , or reciprocal second. One might ask how a reciprocal second, or a per second, might be realized, or even conceived. A molecular density is said to have the unit m3 , or reciprocal cube of side one metre, whatever that may mean in the context.

The addition of quantities, and their differences

An abstract quantity may be added to any other abstract quantity of the same kind, and the result is yet another abstract quantity of that kind. That is not always so of measurable quantities. A value of a measurable quantity is always in relation to a datum. The height ht of a tide is the height of the surface of a tidal water above local chart datum at a given moment and place of interest. The height htLB of a tide at London Bridge cannot meaningfully be added to htWB , the height of a tide at Washington Bridge. If the result is ht? = htLB + htWB , there is no datum to which values of ht? can be referred, and it has no practical signicance. Obviously the sum of two tidal heights is not another tidal height. That is not to say that two measurable lengths can never be added. If they are contiguous the nishing point of one is the datum point of the other. But quantities do not always need to be contiguous to be added. The total period of sunshine in a day is determined by summing the lengths of sunny periods that have occurred, simply by transferring the datum moment of each such period to the nishing moment of the preceding one. The actual times of day of the sunny periods are not signicant in determining the days total of hours of sunshine. Heights and distances and time periods are extensive quantities and in general such quantities can be added if their datum values are not associated with different and immovable places or times. Units of extensive quantities have no immovable datum values and can be summed to give values of such quantities. A difference between two extensive quantities of the same kind may be another extensive quantity of that kind and nature. Intensive measurable quantities with absolute zeros cannot be summed2 , though they may be legitimately assigned units.
2 In an ideal mixture of gases a partial pressure may be assigned to each kind of molecule, the sum of the partial pressures being the pressure of the mixture. The partial pressures as such are not separately measurable. Other than in gases, pressure is an intensive quantity with no absolute zero.

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On quantity calculus and units of measurement

Examples are the transport properties of uids. A thermal conductivity cannot be meaningfully added to another, and nor can a mass diffusivity. Mass density too has an immovable datum: an absolute zero. The density of water at 0 C cannot be added to that of ice at that temperature to yield another real density. Densities can be compared, so it is possible to adopt a particular density as a unit. If a value of a particular density is expressed as n units, it is not the result of adding together n unit densities; it is a density that is, by comparison, n times that of a unit density. In general all intensive quantities of the same kind can be compared and can be assigned units. A difference between two intensive quantities of the same kind is not another intensive quantity. It is arguably not of the same kind as the intensive quantities of which it is the difference. It is certainly not of the same nature.

other4 ) for the unit of temperature difference, and to indicate a thermodynamic temperature on the Kelvin scale by calling it n Kelvin. It might be argued that a thermodynamic temperature is the amount by which it differs from the datum temperature, which is zero, so that all thermodynamic temperatures are in fact differences of temperature and entitled to be evaluated using a unit of temperature difference. But no denition of thermodynamic temperature denes it in relation to a datum; its lowest possible value is zero simply because the Second Law rules that its values may not be negative. The matter is of signicance in relation to the denition of a unit of entropy. The quantity is dened by the equation dS = dQ/T , (6)

Thermodynamic temperature
A ratio of two thermodynamic temperatures T1 /T2 is a ratio of two energies, the inputted (Q1 ) and rejected (Q2 ) quantities of heat of an ideal, reversible Carnot cycle operating between those temperatures (or on a microscopic scale, the energies of two molecules). A particular temperature T2 may be chosen as a unit in the construction of a scale of thermodynamic temperatures. The SI denes such a scale, the Kelvin scale, wherein the temperature at the triple point of water, the scales fundamental temperature, is assigned the number 273.16. The unit is dened as one 273.16th of the temperature of the triple point of water. The xed fundamental temperature on the Kelvin scale is expressed in the SI as 273.16 kelvin, abbreviated to 273.16 K, where kelvin is termed the unit. A thermodynamic temperature T (also known as absolute temperature) is always and essentially in relation to absolute zero. Its unit is a unit of absolute temperature and can be used only in the expression of a value of absolute temperature. The ratio T /T may appear to be a pure number, but it is not a relative temperature3 . As with other intensive quantities a temperature difference is not a quantity of the same nature as a thermodynamic temperature and arguably not of the same kind. However, a difference of 1 on the Kelvin scale can usefully be called a unit of temperature difference. Such a quantity has no absolute zero; it can be positive or negative. Differences of thermodynamic temperature can be added or subtracted. A value of a thermodynamic temperature used formerly to be expressed as n degrees Kelvin: its unit was degree Kelvin. A value of a difference of temperature was given as m Kelvin degrees, with Kelvin degree as the unit, thus making a distinction. A unit of thermodynamic temperature is of a different kind from that of a temperature difference. It would be appropriate to use the name kelvin (or some
In a particular case it could be written (T1 T2 )/T1 : a Carnot efciency, with T1 in both the numerator and the denominator. It reduces to 1 T2 /T1 : a difference between a ratio of thermodynamic temperatures and unity.
3

where S is the entropy of a system and Q is an energy transferred reversibly to it at temperature T . If the energy dQ is transferred isothermally with a change of phase we cannot substitute in equation (6) dQ = C dT , where C is a heat capacity. A unit of entropy is then a unit of energy per unit of thermodynamic temperature. It is not a unit of energy per unit of temperature difference, as is the case with heat capacity, where the difference of temperature is that resulting from a transfer of energy at constant volume or pressure. Unlike values of specic heat capacities, the values of specic entropies given in tables for specied substances must always be in relation to a given datum state of the substance at a nite thermodynamic temperature. The above view is, however, at variance with one commonly held by physicists as it is expressed by the Conf erence G en erale des Poids et Mesures (CGPM), which has resolved, considering. . . that the unit of thermodynamic temperature and the unit of temperature interval are one and the same unit, which ought to be denoted by a single name and symbol, decides the unit of thermodynamic temperature is denoted by the name kelvin and its symbol is K ; the same name and symbol are used to express a temperature interval; a temperature interval may also be expressed in degrees Celsius. (13th Meeting 19671968, Resolution 3) [7]. The SI Brochure [7] adds, . . . it remains common practice to express thermodynamic temperature, symbol T, in terms of its difference from the reference temperature T0 + 273.15 K, the ice point. That difference is a Celsius temperature, so the Brochure effectively states that thermodynamic temperature may be expressed in terms of Celsius temperature. At the same 13th Meeting, in Resolution 6, the CGPM declared the unit of entropy to be the same as that of heat capacity.

Conclusion
The convention of presenting derived units of measurement in an algebraic format does not, or should not, imply that units
When dening the Kelvin scale it might have seemed appropriate to make the (readily realizable) triple point of water its unit. Because, however, there was already a widely used unit of temperature difference, degree Celsius, it seemed more convenient to make the unit of a difference of thermodynamic temperature equal to a difference of one degree Celsius. It would seem quite appropriate, therefore, to retain the name Celsius for the unit of difference of thermodynamic temperature.
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are variables subject to algebraic manipulation. Some of the SIs derived units which are the result of such manipulation are not in fact quantities of the kinds to which they are assigned. Differences between intensive quantities of the same kind are not themselves quantities of that kind and have a different unit, even though it may bear the same name.

References
[1] Guggenheim E A 1942 Phil. Mag. 33 47996 [2] Maxwell J C 1873 Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

[3] Lodge A 1888 Nature 38 2813 [4] de Boer J 1994/1995 Metrologia 31 40529 [5] 1993 International Vocabulary of Basic and General Terms in Metrology 2nd edn 1992 (Geneva: International Organization for Standardization) [6] 1992 Quantities and Units, ISO 31 (Geneva: International Organization for Standardization) [7] BIPM 1998 Le Syst` eme International dUnit es 7th edn (S` evres: Bureau International des Poids et Mesures) [8] Pearsall J and Trimble B (ed) 1996 Oxford English Reference Dictionary 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press) [9] Mills I M 1994/1995 Metrologia 31 53741 [10] Emerson W H 2004 Metrologia 41 L337

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