Say hello to ronnagrams and kettameters: International scientists meeting in France on Friday voted on new metric prefixes to express the world’s largest and smallest measurements, leading to an ever-increasing amount of data. For the first time in over three decades, new prefixes are being added to the International System of Units (SI), the agreed global standard for the metric system.

Well-known prefixes such as kilo and milli were combined with ronna and quetta for the largest numbers and ronto and quecto for the smallest numbers. The amendment was voted on by scientists and government officials from around the world who administer the SI and attend the 27th General Conference on Weights and Measures, which meets roughly every four years at the Palace of Versailles west of Paris.

The UK National Physics Laboratory, which is spearheading the search for the new prefix, confirmed the decision in a statement. Prefixes make it easy to express large quantities; For example, always specifying a kilometer as 1,000 meters or a millimeter as thousandths of a meter quickly becomes cumbersome. Since the SI was created in 1960, the scientific need has led to an increase in the number of prefixes. This last happened in 1991, when chemists who wanted to express large molecular quantities forced the addition of zetta and iota.

yottameter is one followed by 24 zeros.

But even the mighty Yotta isn’t enough to keep up with the world’s insatiable appetite for data, according to Richard Brown, head of metrology at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory.

“We are now very close to the limit in terms of expressing data in jottabytes, which is the highest prefix,” Brown told AFP. “Actually, it makes sense to have a symmetrical expansion that’s useful for quantum science, particle physics — when measuring really tiny things.”

The new weight of the world

New prefixes could simplify the way we talk about fairly large objects.

“If we consider mass rather than distance, Earth weighs about six ronnagrams,” Brown said, which is six followed by 27 zeros. “Jupiter, that’s about two kettagrams,” he added—one two with 30 zeros.

Brown said he got the idea to update when he saw media reports using unauthorized data storage prefixes like brontobyte and hellabyte. Specifically, Google has been using hella for bytes since 2010.

“These were terms that were circulating informally, so it was clear that SI had to do something,” he said.

However, metric prefixes only need to be shortened to the first letter – and with the exception of bronto and hella, B and H have already been used.

“The only letters that weren’t used for other units or other symbols were R and Q,” Brown said. The rule is that larger prefixes end with A and smaller prefixes end with O. He added that the new prefixes should “future-proof the system” and meet the world’s need for more for at least the next 20 to 25 years. Source