Abhenry is a medical term referring to the centimeter-gram-second electromagnetic unit of inductance, equal to 10^-9 or one billionth of a Henry which is a standard unit of inductance in the meter-kilogram-second system, equivalent to that of an induced 1 volt in the presence of a current that is changing at a rate of 1 ampere per second: When the scientists met, they exchanged notes about their theories of various applications of abhenries.

The term, abhenry, was named for Joseph Henry (1797-1878), a U.S. scientist who discovered the electromagnetic phenomenon of self-inductance, and who also discovered mutual inductance, independently of Michael Faraday. His work on the electromagnetic relay was the basis of the electrical telegraph.