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For the first time in more than three decades, officials have designated brand-new prefixes that can be applied to units of measurement within the metric system. Four new prefixes — ronna, ronto, quetta and quecto — will allow scientists to quantify the very largest and smallest things in the universe.
The new prefixes were voted in by scientists at the 27th meeting of the General Conference on Weights and Measures (GCWM) (opens in new tab), which was held from Nov. 15 to Nov. 18 at Versailles Palace near Paris in France. The new terms are part of the International System of Units, also known as the metric system, which is the primary measurement system for every country in the world apart from Myanmar, Liberia and the U.S., which all predominantly use the imperial system of measurement, according to the CIA (opens in new tab).
The new prefixes can be applied to any of the seven base units in the metric system: grams (g) for weight; meters (m) for distance; seconds (s) for time; amps (A) for electrical current; kelvin (K) for temperature; moles (mol) for amount of substance; and candela (cd) for luminosity, as well as other units, such as bytes for computing.
One ronna (R) is the equivalent of one octillion of something (10˄27 or 1 followed by 27 zeros), whereas one ronto (r) is the equivalent of one octillionth of something (10˄minus27 or a decimal point followed by 26 zeros and a 1). One quetta (Q) is the equivalent of one nonillion of something (10˄30) and one quecto (q) is the equivalent of nonillionth of something (10˄minus30).
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This is the first time that new prefixes have been added to the metric system since the addition of zetta (10˄21), zepto (10˄minus21), yotta (10˄24) and yocto (10˄minus24), which were all voted in by the GCWM in 1991.
The new names start in ‘r’ and ‘q’ because these were the only letters to not be currently assigned in the metric system. The last letter of prefixes for large things is always an ‘a’ and the last letter of prefixes for small things always ends in an ‘o.’ The rest of the words are loosely based on the Greek and Latin words for 9 and 10 because the new prefixes are the ninth and tenth largest and smallest prefixes in the metric system.
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