Science Gets New Words
Nov 17, 2022 08:36:46 #
Science is dealing with numbers so large and so small, that it has new terms for them.
New prefixes for the world’s largest and smallest numbers could be confirmed by a vote in Versailles, France, on Friday. The suggested prefixes are ronna and quetta for very large numbers, and ronto and quecto for very small ones, and would become part of the International System of Units (SI) – a standard agreed on by most scientists that underpins every measurement. The growing amount of information produced by the internet now stored on servers means we are running out of names to describe the magnitude of the data.
I think this is a mistake. "ronna" and "ronto" are too close in appearance and in sound. It's like "hypo" and "hyper." Sure, they're different, but they're more alike than different. "Hypoallergenic" sounds the same as "hyperallergenic," yet they mean the exact opposite.
Another bad choice for words involves numbers ending in "illion." There is a difference of a thousand between million, billion, etc., yet they sound so much alike that people don't really consider that huge difference when they hear the numbers.
Just my opinion.
New prefixes for the world’s largest and smallest numbers could be confirmed by a vote in Versailles, France, on Friday. The suggested prefixes are ronna and quetta for very large numbers, and ronto and quecto for very small ones, and would become part of the International System of Units (SI) – a standard agreed on by most scientists that underpins every measurement. The growing amount of information produced by the internet now stored on servers means we are running out of names to describe the magnitude of the data.
I think this is a mistake. "ronna" and "ronto" are too close in appearance and in sound. It's like "hypo" and "hyper." Sure, they're different, but they're more alike than different. "Hypoallergenic" sounds the same as "hyperallergenic," yet they mean the exact opposite.
Another bad choice for words involves numbers ending in "illion." There is a difference of a thousand between million, billion, etc., yet they sound so much alike that people don't really consider that huge difference when they hear the numbers.
Just my opinion.
Nov 17, 2022 08:56:08 #
Nov 17, 2022 09:02:34 #
What's wrong with milli; micro; pico; femto; million; billion; trillion; quadrillion;...?
Don't they work anymore?
(Someone always has to come up with a better mouse trap.)
Don't they work anymore?
(Someone always has to come up with a better mouse trap.)
Nov 17, 2022 09:03:29 #
Nov 17, 2022 09:05:07 #
Nov 18, 2022 08:07:44 #
Longshadow wrote:
What's wrong with milli; micro; pico; femto; million; billion; trillion; quadrillion;...?
Don't they work anymore?
(Someone always has to come up with a better mouse trap.)
Don't they work anymore?
(Someone always has to come up with a better mouse trap.)
After pico and femto come atto Zepto and yocto- this it seems is when you get to 10-27. I see femto as a fairly common prefix but had never heard of atto..probably because I’m an engineer and not a physicist ( and old not young, perhaps)
Nov 18, 2022 08:14:18 #
wireloose wrote:
After pico and femto come atto Zepto and yocto- this it seems is when you get to 10-27. I see femto as a fairly common prefix but had never heard of atto..probably because I’m an engineer and not a physicist ( and old not young, perhaps)
Never heard of those.
I guess I don't use that small or large quantities either.
Nov 18, 2022 08:23:25 #
Longshadow wrote:
Never heard of those.
I guess I don't use that small or large quantities either.
I guess I don't use that small or large quantities either.
Unless you deal with teeny tiny numbers or unimaginably large ones, you probably won't hear about them.
Nov 18, 2022 08:29:22 #
Nov 18, 2022 09:23:25 #
Ummm Jerry...if we are going to winnow down the vocabulary to words that do not look or sound alike...
Hard to do... oops... hard to accomplish.
Up north they will lose right off... buck...duck...cluck...muck...etc.
Hard to do... oops... hard to accomplish.
Up north they will lose right off... buck...duck...cluck...muck...etc.
Nov 18, 2022 09:37:14 #
Nov 18, 2022 09:44:46 #
wireloose wrote:
After pico and femto come atto Zepto and yocto- this it seems is when you get to 10-27. I see femto as a fairly common prefix but had never heard of atto..probably because I’m an engineer and not a physicist ( and old not young, perhaps)
I'd add Groucho and Harpo....
Nov 18, 2022 10:41:54 #
Nov 18, 2022 12:13:38 #
jerryc41 wrote:
Science is dealing with numbers so large and so sm... (show quote)
Have they stopped using the term "gazillion"?
As in, my odds of winning the lottery are one in a gazillion.
This encompasses the notions of the very big and the very small in one term.
Nov 18, 2022 12:32:24 #
Longshadow wrote:
What's wrong with milli; micro; pico; femto; million; billion; trillion; quadrillion;...?
Don't they work anymore?
(Someone always has to come up with a better mouse trap.)
Don't they work anymore?
(Someone always has to come up with a better mouse trap.)
Yes, they are still the standard. The trouble is that they need larger designations for bigger numbers/smaller numbers. Currently there's nothing beyond femto.
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