Introduction
Natural units are intended to elegantly simplify particular algebraic expressions appearing in the laws of physics or to normalize some chosen physical quantities that are properties of universal elementary particles and are reasonably believed to be constant. However there is a choice of the set of natural units chosen, and quantities which are set to unity in one system may take a different value or even assumed to vary in another natural unit system.
Natural units are "natural" because the origin of their definition comes only from properties of nature and not from any human construct. Planck units are often, without qualification, called "natural units", although they constitute only one of several systems of natural units, albeit the best known such system. Planck units (up to a simple multiplier for each unit) might be considered one of the most "natural" systems in that the set of units is not based on properties of any prototype, object, or particle but are solely derived from the properties of free space.
As with other systems of units, the base units of a set of natural units will include definitions and values for length, mass, time, temperature, and electric charge (in lieu of electric current). Some physicists do not recognize temperature as a fundamental physical quantity, since it expresses the energy per degree of freedom of a particle, which can be expressed in terms of energy (or mass, length, and time). Virtually every system of natural units normalizes Boltzmann's constant kB to 1, which can be thought of as simply a way of defining the unit temperature.
In the SI unit system, electric charge is a separate fundamental dimension of physical quantity, but in natural unit systems charge is expressed in terms of the mechanical units of mass, length, and time, similarly to cgs. There are two common ways to relate charge to mass, length, and time: In Lorentz–Heaviside units (also called "rationalized"), Coulomb's law is F = q1q2/(4πr2), and in Gaussian units (also called "non-rationalized"), Coulomb's law is F = q1q2/r2. Both possibilities are incorporated into different natural unit systems.
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