The name dyne was first proposed as a CGS unit of force in 1873 by a Committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.1
The dyne is defined as "the force required to accelerate a mass of one gram at a rate of one centimetre per second squared".2 An equivalent definition of the dyne is "that force which, acting for one second, will produce a change of velocity of one centimetre per second in a mass of one gram".3
One dyne is equal to 10 micronewtons, 10−5 N or to 10 nsn (nanosthenes) in the old metre–tonne–second system of units.
The dyne per centimetre is a unit traditionally used to measure surface tension. For example, the surface tension of distilled water is 71.99 dyn/cm at 25 °C (77 °F).4 (In SI units this is 71.99×10−3 N/m or 71.99 mN/m.)
Thomson, Sir Wl; Professor GC, Foster; Maxwell, Professor JC; Stoney, Mr GJ; Professor Flemming, Jenkin; Siemens, Dr; Bramwell, Mr FJ (September 1873). Everett, Professor (ed.). First Report of the Committee for the Selection and Nomenclature of Dynamical and Electrical Units. Forty-third Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Bradford: Johna Murray. p. 224. Retrieved 8 April 2012. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/94452#page/7/mode/1up ↩
Gyllenbok, Jan (11 April 2018). "dyne". Encyclopaedia of Historical Metrology, Weights, and Measures. Vol. 1. Birkhäuser. p. 90. ISBN 9783319575988. Retrieved 20 April 2018. 9783319575988 ↩
Beach, Chandler B., ed. (1914). "Dyne" . The New Student's Reference Work . Vol. II. Chicago: F. E. Compton and Co. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_Student%27s_Reference_Work/Dyne ↩
Haynes, W.M.; Lide, D. R.; Bruno, T.J., eds. (2015). "Surface tension of common liquids". CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (96nd ed.). CRC Press. p. 6-181. ISBN 9781482260977. 9781482260977 ↩