Did Ronna learn any new metric prefixes? They are quetta upgrade
We may still be far from worrying about how many yottabytes your computer can hold, but the international standards community has added two new prefixes for even larger numbers: ronna for 1027 and quetta for 1030. .
At a conference in Paris last week, representatives of many governments gathered to vote on the official names of these huge magnitude indicators. The last time they did so was in 1991, when the now familiar zetta and yotta were added, along with zepto and yocto for their respective negative powers of 10.
As you might have guessed, we also have terms for 10-27 and 10-30: ronto and quecto.
While there is little that cannot be adequately described in terms of existing prefixes, it is quite nice to have unique units for some familiar scales. For example, as Nature points out, the mass of the Earth is about a ronnagram and the mass of an electron is about a quectogram. Convenient when weighing them in the kitchen.
Most importantly, it leaves a bit of room for data science, in which we are already talking about "exascale" computing and zettabytes of data. In fact, as a planet, we are expected to produce one yottabyte per year in the 2030s unless some blessed intervention takes place. What comes next?
If you asked the question a week ago, the answer might be "hellabytes" and then "brontobytes", which are actually great terms but, like Richard Brown, the British metrologist who came up with the prefixes, warned Nature, "completely unofficial." Unfortunately, the prefixes also conflict with existing abbreviations, and probably no one in Southern California would agree to using "hella" in an official context.
"It's not specifically that I wanted to be a party pooper, although that also comes into play," Brown told the winner - the loot and all that, but no need to rub it, Richard. Regardless, the conference cited "the importance of prompt action to prevent unofficial prefix names from being de facto adopted in other communities" as one of the reasons for the adoption. new ones.
Ronna and quetta arrived after years of discussing and eliminating alternatives. It may be odd that the new term is so close to 'rona', something we'd rather not remember, but we can take comfort in the fact that we probably won't need this term in years. to come and hopefully the pandemic will be a distant memory by then (and hopefully not because it has been overshadowed by a worse one).
We may still be far from worrying about how many yottabytes your computer can hold, but the international standards community has added two new prefixes for even larger numbers: ronna for 1027 and quetta for 1030. .
At a conference in Paris last week, representatives of many governments gathered to vote on the official names of these huge magnitude indicators. The last time they did so was in 1991, when the now familiar zetta and yotta were added, along with zepto and yocto for their respective negative powers of 10.
As you might have guessed, we also have terms for 10-27 and 10-30: ronto and quecto.
While there is little that cannot be adequately described in terms of existing prefixes, it is quite nice to have unique units for some familiar scales. For example, as Nature points out, the mass of the Earth is about a ronnagram and the mass of an electron is about a quectogram. Convenient when weighing them in the kitchen.
Most importantly, it leaves a bit of room for data science, in which we are already talking about "exascale" computing and zettabytes of data. In fact, as a planet, we are expected to produce one yottabyte per year in the 2030s unless some blessed intervention takes place. What comes next?
If you asked the question a week ago, the answer might be "hellabytes" and then "brontobytes", which are actually great terms but, like Richard Brown, the British metrologist who came up with the prefixes, warned Nature, "completely unofficial." Unfortunately, the prefixes also conflict with existing abbreviations, and probably no one in Southern California would agree to using "hella" in an official context.
"It's not specifically that I wanted to be a party pooper, although that also comes into play," Brown told the winner - the loot and all that, but no need to rub it, Richard. Regardless, the conference cited "the importance of prompt action to prevent unofficial prefix names from being de facto adopted in other communities" as one of the reasons for the adoption. new ones.
Ronna and quetta arrived after years of discussing and eliminating alternatives. It may be odd that the new term is so close to 'rona', something we'd rather not remember, but we can take comfort in the fact that we probably won't need this term in years. to come and hopefully the pandemic will be a distant memory by then (and hopefully not because it has been overshadowed by a worse one).
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