The stilb (sb) is the
CGS unit of
luminance
Luminance is a photometric measure of the luminous intensity per unit area of light travelling in a given direction. It describes the amount of light that passes through, is emitted from, or is reflected from a particular area, and falls with ...
for objects that are not self-luminous. It is equal to one
candela
The candela ( or ; symbol: cd) is the unit of luminous intensity in the International System of Units (SI). It measures luminous power per unit solid angle emitted by a light source in a particular direction. Luminous intensity is analogous t ...
per square centimeter or 10
4 nits
The National Institutes of Technology (NITs) are the central government-owned-public technical institutes under the ownership of Ministry of Education, Government of India. They are governed by the National Institutes of Technology, Scienc ...
(candelas per square meter). The name was coined by the French physicist
André Blondel
André-Eugène Blondel (28 August 1863 – 15 November 1938) was a French engineer and physicist. He is the inventor of the electromechanical oscillograph and a system of photometric units of measurement.
Life
Blondel was born in Chaumont, Ha ...
around 1920. It comes from the Greek word (), meaning 'to glitter'.
It was in common use in Europe up to
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
. In North America self-explanatory terms such as candle per square inch and candle per square meter were more common. The unit has since largely been replaced by the SI unit:
candela per square meter. The current national standard for SI in the United States discourages the use of the stilb.
[IEEE/ASTM SI 10-2002. ''American National Standard for Use of the International System of Units (SI): The Modern Metric System''. New York: IEEE, 30 December 2002. See Section 3.3.3.]
Unit conversion
Notes and references
Stilb at ''A Dictionary of Units of Measurement'', Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Accessed June 2008.
at Sizes.com. Accessed June 2008.
Units of luminance
Centimetre–gram–second system of units
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