Saturday, June 02, 2007

SI Prefixes and Symbols: Metric Prefixes

SI prefixes (metric prefixes) are short names and letter symbols that precedes a unit of measure or its symbol. SI prefixes are applied and attached to unit of the International System of Units (SI) which are used to form new subdivisions and multiples (unit symbol) of that unit - prefix symbol attached to the unit symbol. These prefix symbols strictly represent powers of 10 which can be raised to a positive or negative power, as well as, it can also combined with other unit symbols (unit of measure) to form compound unit symbols. They are represented in the general form 10n where n is ranged from anywhere between 24 to -24. As such, prefixes are multiples when n>0 and submultiples when n<0,>



PrefixSymbolFactorOrdinary NotationName
yottaY10241 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000septillion
zettaZ10211 000 000 000 000 000 000 000sextillion
exaE10181 000 000 000 000 000 000quintillion
petaP10151 000 000 000 000 000quadrillion
teraT10121 000 000 000 000trillion
gigaG1091 000 000 000billion
megaM1061 000 000million
kilok1031 000thousand

hectoh102100hundred
dekada10110ten



1001one

decid10-10.1tenth
centic10-20.01hundredth

millim10-30.001thousandth
microμ10-60.000 001millionth
nanon10-90.000 000 001billionth
picop10-120.000 000 000 001trillionth
femtof10-150.000 000 000 000 001quadrillionth
attoa10-180.000 000 000 000 000 001quintillionth
zeptoz10-210.000 000 000 000 000 000 001sextillionth
yoctoy10-240.000 000 000 000 000 000 000 001septillionth



Related Articles:
Distance Conversion: Miles and Kilometers
What are Roman Numerals?

4 comments:

  1. Care to exchange links?

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Yotta" should be changed to "A Whole Lotta"

    ReplyDelete
  3. Arsenal:
    Thanks for the visit and the offer but I don't take part in link exchange. If I did, my site would by now have hundreds of links from all the requests I got so far. The natural exchange of links can however take place but I’m not going to tell you how :)

    The Phoenix:
    I totally agree with you there :)

    Later.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Very useful post, I have bookmark-ed it... thanks...

    ReplyDelete