How much does the earth weigh? About six ronnagrams

The General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) adopted two new prefixes on Friday, Ronna (R) and Quetta(Q) to express the tiny or gigantic orders of magnitude increasingly common in modern science.

For the first time in over three decades International System (SI), Founded in 1960 and more commonly referred to as the metric system, it is gaining new prefixes.

Although everyone knows kilogramwhich expresses, for example, the number of meters or grams in a thousand – with three zeros after the one – only scientists use the terms zetta (Z) and Yotta (Y), which express, respectively, the quantity with 21 and 24 zeros at the end.

They were introduced in 1991 when the chemical community needed to express the number of molecules of that size.

But even Yotta it cannot meet the need to express larger and larger orders of magnitude due to the rapid development of digital technologies, explains Richard Brown, head of metrology – the science of measurement – at the British National Physical Laboratory.

“We’re very close to the limit for expressing data in yottabytes, which is the highest available prefix,” he says. AFP scientist, to the initiative of this change.

These prefixes will apply not only to infinitely large. They also apply to infinitesimals, such as in “quantum science – particle physics – where you measure very, very small things,” adds Richard Brown.

New prefixes and the letter that represents them

New prefixes Ronna (P) and Quetta (Q) Express the values ​​of 27 and 30 with zeros after one, respectively.

symmetrical, soon (p) and quecto (q) express quantities whose unit of measurement is respectively in the 27th and 30th place after the decimal point.

With these prefixes Land It weighs about 6 ronnagrams, which is 6 followed by 27 zeros, says Dr. Brown.

Conversely, something weighing 6 rontograms will be equivalent to a decimal number, and 6 will be placed in the 27th position to the right of the decimal point.

A British scientist wanted to create new prefixes due to the emergence of fancy names used to store data, such as +Brontobytes+ or +Gelabytes+.

But it was necessary to meet the requirements International system and use single-letter prefixes.

On the other hand, the convention requires that prefixes of large orders end in “a”, and prefixes of very small numbers end in “o”.

According to the metrology specialist, Ronna and ronto, Quetta and quecto will be able to meet very large number measurement needs for at least the next 20-25 years.

AFP