
[After Ernst Werner von SIEMENS.]
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| sieve tube exudate protein, sievert, sievorptive chromatography |
The SI unit of conductivity, equal to one reciprocal ohm (Ω−1); symbol S. Called also mho.

The siemens (symbol: S) is the unit of electric conductance and electric admittance in the International System of Units (SI). Conductance and admittance are the reciprocals of resistance and impedance respectively, hence one siemens is equal to the reciprocal of one ohm, and is sometimes referred to as the mho. The 14th General Conference on Weights and Measures approved the addition of the siemens as a derived unit in 1971.
The unit is named after Ernst Werner von Siemens. As with every SI unit whose name is derived from the proper name of a person, the first letter of its symbol is upper case (S). When an SI unit is spelled out in English, it should always begin with a lower case letter (siemens), except where any word would be capitalized.[1] In English, the same form siemens is used both for the singular and plural.[2]
For a conducting or semiconducting element with electrical resistance R, the conductance, G, is defined as

where I is the electric current through the object and V is the voltage (electrical potential difference) across the object.
The unit siemens for the conductance G is defined by

where Ω is the ohm, A is the ampere, and V is the volt.
For a device with a conductance of one siemens, the electric current through the device will increase by one ampere for every increase of one volt of electric potential difference across the device.
The conductance of a resistor with a resistance of five ohms, for example, is (5 Ω)−1, which is equal to 200 mS.
Mho is an alternative name of the same unit, the reciprocal of one ohm. Mho is derived from spelling ohm backwards and is written with an upside-down capital Greek letter Omega:
, Unicode symbol U+2127 (℧). According to Maver[3] the term mho was suggested by Sir William Thomson. The mho was officially renamed[citation needed] to the siemens, replacing the old meaning of the "siemens unit", at a conference in 1881.[4]
The term siemens, as it is a SI term, is used universally in science and often in electrical applications, while mho is still used primarily in electronic applications. Two reasons are usually given[citation needed] for using mho instead of siemens in electronic applications:
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