Giovanni Giorgi

For the Italian priest and composer, see Giovanni Giorgi (composer).

Giovanni Giorgi
File:Giovanni Giorgi.jpg Giovanni Giorgi
Born	(1871-11-27)27 November 1871 Lucca
Died	Castiglioncello, Livorno
Nationality	Italian
Engineering career
Institution memberships	University of Rome
Significant projects	Giorgi system of measurement

Giovanni Giorgi (27 November 1871 – 19 August 1950) was an Italian physicist and electrical engineer who proposed the Giorgi system of measurement, the precursor to the International System of Units (SI).

Biography

Giorgi was born in Lucca and studied engineering at the Institute of Technology of Rome, he worked at Fornaci Giorgi in Ferentino, then was the director of the Technology Office of Rome between 1906 and 1923. He also taught at the University of Rome between 1913 and 1939. During World War II he moved to Ferentino.

Giorgi died in Castiglioncello, Livorno at the age of 79.

The Giorgi system

Toward the end of the 19th century, after James Clerk Maxwell's discoveries, it was clear that electric measurements could not be explained in terms of the three fundamental units of length, mass and time. In 1901, Giorgi proposed to the it (AEI) that the MKS system (which used the metre, kilogram and second as its fundamental units) should be extended with a fourth unit to be chosen from the units of electromagnetism.

In 1935 this was adopted by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as the M.K.S. System of Giorgi without specifying which electromagnetic unit would be the fourth fundamental unit. In 1946 the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) approved a proposal to use the ampere as that unit in a four-dimensional system, the MKSA system.

The Giorgi system was thus the precursor of the International System of Units (SI) adopted in 1960, which was based on six fundamental units: metre, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, and candela. The mole was added as a seventh fundamental unit in 1971.