Say hello to quettameters and ronnagrams: Friday’s vote by international scientists in France was for new metric prefixes that will express the largest and most complex measurements around the globe, as a result of an increasing amount of data.
This marks the first time that new prefixes were added to the International System of Units (ISAU) in over three decades.SI), the agreed global standard for the metric system.
Joining the ranks of well-known prefixes like kilo and milli are ronna and quetta for the largest numbers – and ronto and quecto for the smallest.
Scientists and representatives of governments from around the globe attended the meeting to vote on the change. 27th General Conference on Weights and MeasuresThe SI is governed by the governing body, the FI and meets approximately every four years at Versailles Palace west of Paris.
The UK’s National Physical LaboratoryThe group that led the push for new prefixes was called. They confirmed the resolution in a statement.
The prefixes make it easier to express large amounts – for example, always referring to a kilometer as 1,000 meters or a millimeter as one thousandth of a meter would quickly become cumbersome.
Scientific need has driven a growing number prefixes to the SI since its inception in 1960. In 1991, chemists wanted to express large molecular amounts and so zetta was added.
A yottameter refers to a one-digit number followed by 24 zeroes.
However, even the mighty Yotta isn’t enough to deal with the data-hunger world. Richard BrownThe head of metrology at UK’s National Physical Laboratory is.
Brown stated to AFP that he was close to reaching the limit when it comes to expressing data in yottabytes (which is currently the highest prefix),
“At the bottom end, it makes sense to have a symmetrical expansion, which is useful for quantum science, particle physics – when you’re measuring really, really small things.”
The new world weight
These prefixes will simplify the way we talk about large objects.
Brown stated that “If we consider mass instead of distance, then the Earth weighs approximately 6 ronnagrams.” This is a six-number followed by 27 zeroes.
” Jupiter, that’s about two quettagrams,” he added – a two followed by 30 zeroes.
Brown claimed that he got the idea for the update after he read media reports that used unapproved prefixes to store data such as hellabytes and brontobytes. Google, in particular, has been using hellaforbytes since 2010.
He stated, “Those were terms that were not officially in circulation, so the SI had to do some thing.”
However metric prefixes need to be shortened to just their first letter – and B and H were already taken, ruling out bronto and hella.
Brown stated that R and Q were the only letters not used to represent other symbols or units.
Convention dictates that prefixes larger than A should end in an A, while those smaller should end in O.
Brown stated that the middle of the words were “very, very loosely based upon the Greek and Latin 9 and 10.”
The new prefixes should “future proof the system” and satisfy the world’s need for higher numbers – at least for the next 20 to 25 years, he added.
