Milestone-Proposal:GiovanniGiorgi

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Docket #:2018-05

This Proposal has been approved, and is now a Milestone


To the proposer’s knowledge, is this achievement subject to litigation? No

Is the achievement you are proposing more than 25 years old? Yes

Is the achievement you are proposing within IEEE’s designated fields as defined by IEEE Bylaw I-104.11, namely: Engineering, Computer Sciences and Information Technology, Physical Sciences, Biological and Medical Sciences, Mathematics, Technical Communications, Education, Management, and Law and Policy. Yes

Did the achievement provide a meaningful benefit for humanity? Yes

Was it of at least regional importance? Yes

Has an IEEE Organizational Unit agreed to pay for the milestone plaque(s)? Yes

Has an IEEE Organizational Unit agreed to arrange the dedication ceremony? Yes

Has the IEEE Section in which the milestone is located agreed to take responsibility for the plaque after it is dedicated? Yes

Has the owner of the site agreed to have it designated as an IEEE Milestone? Yes


Year or range of years in which the achievement occurred:

1901-1902

Title of the proposed milestone:

Rationalization of the International System of Units, 1901-1902

Plaque citation summarizing the achievement and its significance:

The scientist and engineer Giovanni Giorgi developed a rationalization of the International System of Units

200-250 word abstract describing the significance of the technical achievement being proposed, the person(s) involved, historical context, humanitarian and social impact, as well as any possible controversies the advocate might need to review.


IEEE technical societies and technical councils within whose fields of interest the Milestone proposal resides.


In what IEEE section(s) does it reside?

IEEE Italy Section

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) which have agreed to sponsor the Milestone:

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) paying for milestone plaque(s):

Unit: IEEE Italy Section
Senior Officer Name: Tiziana Tambosso

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) arranging the dedication ceremony:

Unit: IEEE Italy Section
Senior Officer Name: Tiziana Tambosso

IEEE section(s) monitoring the plaque(s):

IEEE Section: IEEE Italy Section
IEEE Section Chair name: Tiziana Tambosso

Milestone proposer(s):

Proposer name: Fabrizio Frezza
Proposer email: Proposer's email masked to public

Please note: your email address and contact information will be masked on the website for privacy reasons. Only IEEE History Center Staff will be able to view the email address.

Street address(es) and GPS coordinates in decimal form of the intended milestone plaque site(s):

Via Eudossiana 18, 00184 Rome, Italy Latitude 41.889187 Longitude 12.498257200000012

Describe briefly the intended site(s) of the milestone plaque(s). The intended site(s) must have a direct connection with the achievement (e.g. where developed, invented, tested, demonstrated, installed, or operated, etc.). A museum where a device or example of the technology is displayed, or the university where the inventor studied, are not, in themselves, sufficient connection for a milestone plaque.

Please give the address(es) of the plaque site(s) (GPS coordinates if you have them). Also please give the details of the mounting, i.e. on the outside of the building, in the ground floor entrance hall, on a plinth on the grounds, etc. If visitors to the plaque site will need to go through security, or make an appointment, please give the contact information visitors will need. The site is the historic site of the Faculty of Engineering. Yes, there are already other historical markers.

Are the original buildings extant?

Yes

Details of the plaque mounting:

The mounting is predicted in the ground floor entrance hall

How is the site protected/secured, and in what ways is it accessible to the public?

The plaque will be freely accessible to the public. During the opening hours, staff in charge is always present. A night watchman is provided as well.

Who is the present owner of the site(s)?

"La Sapienza" University of Rome, Italy, Faculty of Civil and Industrial Engineering

What is the historical significance of the work (its technological, scientific, or social importance)? If personal names are included in citation, include justification here. (see section 6 of Milestone Guidelines)

As a consequence of the mechanical-centered vision of physics, dominant for nearly all of the 19th century—such that all the physical phenomena could be explained by the fundamental concepts of mechanics—the previously mentioned choices seemed to be the right ones as, in this way, all the electromagnetic units could be derived from the mechanical ones. However, it was just this absurd assumption that caused the great confusion in the field of the systems of units—this confusion led to the proposal of a new system by the Italian engineer Giovanni Giorgi at the beginning of the 20th century. Giorgi’s brilliant intuition was that all the difficulties could be solved simultaneously if one abandoned the absurd pretension of reducing the electromagnetic units to mechanical ones. His fundamental observation was that the group of units more used in practice—those of resistance, capacity, intensity of electric current, difference of potential, and inductance—is fully determined by the units of work and time, and one of them, independent of the choice, by the units of length and mass. The only condition is that the electrical and mechanical powers are both to be measured in watts.

What obstacles (technical, political, geographic) needed to be overcome?


What features set this work apart from similar achievements?


Supporting texts and citations to establish the dates, location, and importance of the achievement: Minimum of five (5), but as many as needed to support the milestone, such as patents, contemporary newspaper articles, journal articles, or chapters in scholarly books. 'Scholarly' is defined as peer-reviewed, with references, and published. You must supply the texts or excerpts themselves, not just the references. At least one of the references must be from a scholarly book or journal article. All supporting materials must be in English, or accompanied by an English translation.

G. Giorgi, “Unità razionali nell’elettromagnetismo [Rational units in electromagnetism],” Atti dell’Associazione Elettrotecnica Italiana, vol. 5, pp. 402–418, Oct. 13, 1901. G. Giorgi, “Memoria originale dell’ing. Giovanni Giorgi [An original memoir by Giovanni Giorgi, engineer],” Il Nuovo Cimento, vol. VI, no. 5, pp. 11–30, 1902. G. Giorgi, “Rational units of electromagnetism,” Read before the Physical Society of London, May 27, 1902. G. Giorgi, “Rational electromagnetic units,” Electr. World Eng., vol. 11, pp. 368–370, Sept. 6, 1902.

Supporting materials (supported formats: GIF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, DOC): All supporting materials must be in English, or if not in English, accompanied by an English translation. You must supply the texts or excerpts themselves, not just the references. For documents that are copyright-encumbered, or which you do not have rights to post, email the documents themselves to ieee-history@ieee.org. Please see the Milestone Program Guidelines for more information.


Please email a jpeg or PDF a letter in English, or with English translation, from the site owner(s) giving permission to place IEEE milestone plaque on the property, and a letter (or forwarded email) from the appropriate Section Chair supporting the Milestone application to ieee-history@ieee.org with the subject line "Attention: Milestone Administrator." Note that there are multiple texts of the letter depending on whether an IEEE organizational unit other than the section will be paying for the plaque(s).

Please recommend reviewers by emailing their names and email addresses to ieee-history@ieee.org. Please include the docket number and brief title of your proposal in the subject line of all emails.