The International electrical units 1893–1910

Secretary of the International Committee on Electrical Units and Standards. The Chicago Electrical Congress of 1893 adopted definitions and numerical values for the electrical units, which were recommended to all countries with the hope that they would be generally accepted and that international uniformity would result. The. following year they were adopted in this country by an act of Congress, which is still in force. England adopted them also in 1894, and France in 1896. In 1898 Germany adopted somewhat different definitions for the fundamental electrical units, taking the same numerical values for the ohm and ampere, but a different value, based on the results of further experiments, for the Clark standard cells, in terms of which the volt is expressed. In some other countries the value of the Clark cell, which had been adopted by America, England and France (1.434 volts at 15 deg. cent.) was chosen, and in others the value adopted by Germany (1.4328 volts at 15 deg. cent.) was taken. Hence there were two different values for the volt.