MKS units
system of measurement
The metre, kilogram, second system of units, also known more briefly as MKS units or the MKS system, is a physical system of measurement based on the metre, kilogram, and second (MKS) as base units. Distances are described in terms of metres, mass in terms of kilograms and time in seconds. Derived units are defined using the appropriate combinations, such as velocity in metres per second. Some units have their own names, such as the newton unit of force which is defined as kilogram times metres per second squared.
The modern International System of Units (SI, from the French name Système international d'unités) was originally created as a formalization of the MKS system. The SI has been redefined several times since then and is now based entirely on fundamental physical constants, but still closely approximates the original MKS units for most practical purposes.
History
By the mid-19th century, there was a demand by scientists to define a coherent system of units. A coherent system of units is one where all units are directly derived from a set of base units, without the need of any conversion factors. The United States customary units are an example of a non-coherent set of units. In 1874, the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) introduced the CGS system, a coherent system based on the centimetre, gram and second.
“MKS units” enters the record as system of measurement. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what units, system and measurement can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q512417. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1874.
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This entry incorporates text from “MKS units” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.