Monday 21 November 2022 04:26 PM Ronnagrams and quettameters: Scientists confirm new prefixes for big and small ... trends now
Scientists have officially confirmed new prefixes to express the world's largest and smallest measurements, from the unimaginably large to the infinitesimally small.
Joining the ranks of well-known prefixes such as kilo are 'ronna' and 'quetta' for the largest-defined numbers and 'ronto' and 'quecto' for the smallest.
Ronna is 1 followed by 27 zeroes – a billion billion billion – while quetta is 1 followed by 30 zeroes – a thousand times larger.
At the other end of the scale, ronto is a fraction of 1 that features 27 digits after the decimal point, while quecto is a thousand times smaller still.
The large prefixes will help classify exponentially growing size requirements of data science and digital storage, while the small prefixes will be useful for quantum science and particle physics.
To put the new measurements into context, 10 quectograms is around the mass of a single bit of data as stored on your mobile phone.
At the other end of the scale, the mass of Jupiter is about 2 quettagrams, while the mass of Earth is six ronnagrams.
The large prefixes are needed to accommodate the exponentially growing size requirements of data science and digital storage (file photo)
Dr Richard Brown at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) led the proposal recommending the new names, which have been added to the International System of Units (SI), the agreed global standard for the metric system.
The change was voted on by global scientists and government representatives attending the 27th General Conference on Weights and Measures, which governs the SI and meets roughly every four years at Versailles Palace, west of Paris.
'The new prefixes came into force the moment the vote was passed last Friday,' Dr Brown told MailOnline. 'It may take official documents and websites a few days to be updated though.'
Dr Brown said the new prefixes, just like all the other prefixes, are universally available for use with any units.
'So you can have ronnametres and ronnagrams, just like you can have kilometres, kilograms, kilowatts, etcetera,' he told MailOnline.
Ronna and quetta refer to the very large, while ronto and quectoc refer to the very small.
For example, one rontogram as can be written as 10-27 grams, which can also be expressed as 0.000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 001 grams
One quectogram is even smaller – 0.000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 001 grams.
The Earth's mass can now be expressed as six ronnagrams after scientists voted to add new metric prefixes
