After yesterday’s Editor’s Corner on academic degrees, I received a question on some different types of degree (Celsius and Fahrenheit). Wouldn’t you know, there are rules on capitalizing the different terms of measurement that are derived from proper names. The standard rule from the Chicago Manual of Style is to lowercase the full name of the unit of measure (if it is based on a person’s name), but to use an uppercase letter to abbreviate the measurement.
Of course there is an exception to that exceptional rule: when a term follows the word “degree” it is capitalized. For example, “It was a hot day in Athens—the thermometer reached 42 degrees Celsius.”
I’ve compiled a table below based on information from Wikipedia and the Chicago Manual of Style. It includes different measurements named after people, what the units measure, and a little information about what those folks did for a living. Enjoy!
| Full Term | Abbrev. | Measures | Named After… |
| ampere | A | electricity | André-Marie Ampère
(1775–1836) French mathematician and physicist, considered the father of electrodynamics |
| angstrom | Å | length
(one ten-billionth of a meter) |
Anders Jonas Ångström
(1814–1874) Swedish physicist |
| degree Baumé | Bé or °Bé | density of liquids | Antoine Baumé
(1728-1804) French pharmacist |
| degree Celsius | °C | temperature | Anders Celsius
(1701–1744) Swedish astronomer |
| curie | Ci | radioactivity | Marie Curie
(1867 – 4 July 1934) Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist Pierre Curie (1859 –1906) French physicist |
| dalton | Da | atomic mass | John Dalton
(1766 –1844) English chemist, meteorologist and physicist |
| faraday | F | electrical charge | Michael Faraday
(1791 –1867) English scientist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry |
| degree Fahrenheit | °F | temperature | Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit
(1686–1736) German physicist, engineer, and glass blower |
| hertz | Hz | frequency (cycles per second) | Heinrich Rudolf Hertz
(1857 –1894) German physicist |
| joule | J | energy | James Prescott Joule
(1818–1889) English physicist |
| kelvin (no degree symbol used) | K | temperature | William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
(1824–1907) Belfast-born engineer and physicist |
| newton | N | force | Sir Isaac Newton
1642 –1727 English physicist and mathematician |
| pascal | Pa | force per square unit of area | Blaise Pascal
(1623 –1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher |
| degree Réaumur | °R | temperature | René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur
(1683 to 1757) French scientist |
| siemens | S | electricity | Ernst Werner von Siemens
(1816 –1892) German inventor and industrialist. |
| tesla | T | strength of magnetic fields | Nikola Tesla
(1856 –1943) Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist |
| volt | V | electricity | Alessandro Volta
(1745–1827) Italian physicist |
| watt | W | rate of energy conversion or transfer | James Watt
(1736–1819) Scottish engineer |
| weber | Wb | magnetic flux | Wilhelm Eduard Weber
(1804–1891) German physicist |
Kara Church
Technical Editor, Advisory
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