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A circular mil is a unit of area, equal to the area of a circle with a diameter of one mil (one thousandth of an inch). It corresponds to 5.067×10−4 mm². It is a unit intended for referring to the area of a wire with a circular cross section. As the area in circular mils can be calculated without reference to π, the unit makes conversion between cross section and diameter of a wire considerably easier.
A barn (symbol: b) is a unit of area equal to 10−28 m2 (100 fm2). Originally used in nuclear physics for expressing the cross sectional area of nuclei and nuclear reactions, today it is also used in all fields of high-energy physics to express the cross sections of any scattering process, and is best understood as a measure of the probability of interaction between small particles.