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Heaviside–Lorentz


Lorentz–Heaviside units (or Heaviside–Lorentz units) constitute a system of units (particularly electromagnetic units) within CGS, named for Hendrik Antoon Lorentz and Oliver Heaviside. They share with CGS-Gaussian units the property that the electric constant ε0 and magnetic constant µ0 do not appear, having been incorporated implicitly into the unit system and electromagnetic equations. Lorentz–Heaviside units may be regarded as normalizing ε0 = 1 and µ0 = 1, while at the same time revising Maxwell's equations to use the speed of light c instead.

Lorentz–Heaviside units, like SI units but unlike Gaussian units, are rationalized, meaning that there are no factors of 4π appearing explicitly in Maxwell's equations. The fact that these units are rationalized partly explains their appeal in quantum field theory: the Lagrangian underlying the theory does not have any factors of 4π in these units. Consequently, Lorentz–Heaviside units differ by factors of 4π in the definitions of the electric and magnetic fields and of electric charge. They are particularly convenient when performing calculations in spatial dimensions greater than three such as in string theory. They are often used in relativistic calculations.


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