Magnetometer Carl Friedrich Gauss, head of the Geomagnetic Observatory in Göttingen, published a paper on measurement of the Earth's magnetic field. It described a new instrument that consisted of a permanent bar magnet suspended horizontally from a gold fibre. The difference in the oscillations when the bar was magnetised and when it was demagnetised allowed Gauss to calculate an absolute value for the strength of the Earth's magnetic field. The gauss, the CGS unit of magnetic flux density was named in his honour, defined as one maxwell per square centimeter; it equals 1×10 tesla (the SI unit). Francis Ronalds and Charles
Conventional electrical unit Conventional electrical unit A conventional electrical unit (or conventional unit where there is no risk of ambiguity) is a unit of measurement in the field of electricity which is based on the so-called "conventional values" of the Josephson constant and the von Klitzing constant agreed by the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) in 1988. These units are very similar in scale to their corresponding SI units, but are not identical because of their different definition. They are distinguished from the corresponding SI units by setting the symbol in italic typeface and adding a subscript "90" – e.g., the