Talk:Siemens (unit)

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Use of "mho"

Well, somebody seems to have an axe to grind about the use of mho.

The unit is the siemens, and we need to get over it. The mho is dead; long live the siemens.

Looking back at the history of this article, it started out without any mention of mhos, then it became a footnote, then the footnote zoomed up to the top of the article, and it has a strong POV that mhos are better than siemens!

Lately, I removed a confusing and gratuitous reference to mhos, and it's back again, no longer confusing, but still gratuitous.

This is wrong.

This is the siemens article. If you ask me, mhos should go, or be put back where they belong, as a historical foontote to document the former use of this now deperecated unit. Even if I agreed with you that mhos are better, clearer, more intuitive, more elegant, and self-evidently superior, it's over. Mhos are not SI units; siemens are.

If you're interested in promoting the mho, then write a real mho article and add a see also reference from siemens. That's my 2¢.--Jeepien 15:23:43, 2005-08-04 (UTC)

ok i agree i went a little over the top but the term mho and its symbol (probablly the symbol more than the word) are still seen and i think its important to make it absoloutly clear they are the same thing as siemens. I've reverted my most recent edit but i think the inverted ohm sign should stay in the unit equivilences section. Plugwash 14:57, 6 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I attempted reworking the relevant paragraph to put less emphasis on the mho. --DemonThing 04:01, 8 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Eh, the mho needs either a seperate article, or a mention here. It's still in use, and therefore notable. BIPS does not have a monopoly on units of measurement, even though it provides a useful way to standardise measurement in a technical context. 219.79.3.203 09:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Consider this: I was looking through a publication when I stumbled across some "mmhos/cm²". thankfully, google sent me here. 143.50.141.215 (talk) 08:02, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Neither Siemens, nor Mhos are to be promoted or discounted as illegitimate within Wikipedia. Mho is an equivalent unit of conductance, and as such, ought to be formally talked in order to give due reference to the academic community. Mho, like Pounds, Inches, Miles, Slugs, Feet, Fahrenheit, etc.. are as legitimate as any other standard units, and are referenced in current and historical documentation. I will be adding a relationship (1 S = 1 Mho = 1/Ohm, or some such relationship) to clarify the Mho. Nicholas SL Smith^chatter 02:45, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ref: http://www.tpub.com/neets/book1/chapter1/1p.htm , Books: A course in electrical engineering, American telegraphy: systems, apparatus, operation; Lessons in practical electricity: principles, experiments, and arithmetical problems, an elementary text-book; The engineers' manual‎; etc.....

Does anyone have a citation for the tho arguments against switching to the the SI unit of Siemens from mho? (the two lines talking about the inverted Omega and confusion with the SI lower case "s" for Seconds...) Although these reasons make sense, they have no source and might ought to be removed.
Also - to reiterate, this is an article on Siemens, and the only article on conductance as a unit of measure; therefore, "Mho" must be included as an alternate but equivalent unit to serve best the researcher, maintain NPOV, and not promulgate uncited and therefore possible false or slanted information.
Also, please, sign your comments with four tildes.

Nicholas SL Smith^chatter 03:48, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Removing mho from this page altogether is not a good idea since clearly it is still in use. However, mho is an outdated term and should be stated as such. If mho is still used in modern research as commonly as unofficial units like Kcal/mol (which as we all know is widely used in place of kJ/mol in the US) then needless to say the page is perfect as it is. -- BBAmp 16:52 January 21, 2010 (EST)

I think mho is currently correctly placed in this article. Does anyone agree that the following sentence is nonsense? "The term siemens could be confused with the large multinational electronics company Siemens." It's supposed to be confused, because it's the same guy who founded the company and gave resistance it's current name. I'll remove that line if nobody complains. Frodo Muijzer (talk) 10:46, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

SI electri-who-who?

Why is there an entire-article-worthy table of SI electrical units wedged in this article? 65.122.15.98 00:05, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. This chart is not applicable to the article, and there already is another table of SI derived units that is more complete. Should it be removed? DemonThing 23:34, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It belongs here. Keep it. Gene Nygaard 23:46, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

All SI unit articles have the table. The reason is so that redirects from, and/or enquiries about, microsiemens, nanosiemens etc make sense. It is easier to explain multiples in a simple table than in 21 separate articles.

If a reader enquires about the unit (e.g. siemens), then the table is somewhat redundant (as you suggest). However, readers can have a different starting point. They may enquire about yoctosiemens without knowing what it is. Here they can see a description of siemens and how yoctasiemens relates to it and each of the other 20 multiples. Bobblewik 23:40, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So what is a yoctasiemens? or is that a typo? njh 07:15, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lack of clarity

All the math should be eliminated unless someone can define the undefined terms such as A, W, s etc. By the way "mho" definitely belongs here. Read the historic literature....it s full of mhos. Our readers should not be separated from continuity with historical research. It is not wikipedia's mission to purge history. Sekolov 18:11, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The "terms" as you call them are written in roman letters (as opposed to italic) and hence easily recognizable as symbols for units in the International System of Units. A is the internationally standardized symbol for "Ampere", and so on. There should be no need to paraphrase major parts of the SI in every article about a particular unit, that's why we work with links. I agree that the mho belongs here, as long as it's made perfectly clear that this unit is now obsolete. --DrTorstenHenning 10:49, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

your theoretical discussion here is fine, but the point is that there were no links to ampere and some of the other parameters, until i have partially fixed this jargon ridden section. it still needs work to be friendly to the average wikipedia user. regards. Sekolov 14:13, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Primary vs. secondary sources

I had replaced the secondary source in the References section by a primary source. A discussion about this has been initiated on my talk page. Pending further exchange there, I will not revert the insertion of said secondary source for the time being. --DrTorstenHenning (talk) 10:19, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No further exchange there, the reference to the secondary (and unreliable) source goes. --DrTorstenHenning (talk) 11:34, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Equivalent or Equal?

While sleuthing through what I find to be a rather useless and righteous NPV debate about erasing the existence of mho from the Wikipedia reality...

I am left to guess that the mho's are calculated the same a Siemens, and have a unity conversion between the two units.

I'm in support of a mho article. It is relevant. I have seen mho used in recent catalogs.

Eet 1024 (talk) 04:07, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Weird sentence

Maybe it's just me, but the following sentence seems a bit odd: "The term siemens, as it is an SI unit, is used universally in science and primarily in electrical applications, while mho is still used primarily in electronic applications." --Sydius (talk) 16:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Electronic applications make practical use of the behaviour of charges (electrons) within vacuum, gaseous fluids, or semiconductors, when voltage is applied. Here, microchips, transistors/diodes, or tubes are used for analogue or digital operations.

Electric applications (think: the electrical power grid, candescent lighting, resistive heating plates, electric motors (without any controlling logic), etc.) don't generally use semiconductors, but instead metal conductors, resistors, capacitors, coils.

In reality you'll often have devices that have electrical components combined with electronical modules for control, or as sensors e.g. I am not a expert on this, but maybe this gives you an idea about the differences between 'electrical' and 'electronical' Hffman (talk) 03:16, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I didn't know there was a difference. In fact, until you pointed it out, I didn't even realize they were different words. My brain just kept reading the same word twice. --Sydius (talk) 15:54, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not just DC

Siemens (and mhos) are used to measure admittance as well as pure conductance. I've changed the intro to match the Ohm page which mentions impedance as well as resistance. It doesn't mention reactance so I didn't add susceptance. Shannock9 (talk) 13:38, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]