Lifeline

Rejoice, our favorite system for counting just got an expansion. Using prefixes to describe large or small numbers is a part of daily life for most of us. Among the most well known prefixes are kilo-, mega- and giga- as well as milli-, micro- and nano-. Until recently the boundary was set at yocto- and yotta-, which stand for 10^-24 and 10^24. This November it was decided to add four new prefixes to the list, to keep up with the ever growing need to describe the tiniest and biggest of numbers. Two of the new prefixes are ronna- and quetta-, which stand for 10^27and 10^30 respectively. Never before was it this easy to express the mass of our favorite objects in grams, be it the tiniest of particles to the biggest of planets. For the first time we can say that our rocky planet's mass is about six ronnagrams, while Jupiter's is two quettagrams. With the other two prefixes, ronto- and quecto-, which stand for10^27 and10^30, the tiniest of particles can now be expressed in grams. For example, the mass of an electron is approximately one rontogram, isn’t that convenient? To all those who still measure with primitive imperial units like stones, cups and sticks; please adopt the metric system, leave the awful conversion chart behind.