this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 111 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago

I do like to sleep in

[–] [email protected] 89 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix

In case you wondered where they came in the list like I immediately did:

  • quetta Q 10^30
  • ronna R 10^27
  • yotta Y 10^24
  • zetta Z 10^21
  • exa E 10^18
  • peta P 10^15
  • tera T 10^12
  • giga G 10^9
  • mega M 10^6
  • kilo k 10^3
  • hecto h 10^2
  • deca da 10^1
  • ——
  • deci d 10^−1
  • centi c 10^−2
  • milli m 10^−3
  • micro μ 10^−6
  • nano n 10^−9
  • pico p 10^−12
  • femto f 10^p−15
  • atto a 10^−18
  • zepto z 10^−21
  • yocto y 10^−24
  • ronto r 10^−27
  • quecto q 10^−30
[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I noticed recently that a Linux command mentioned in its manpage that it supported Q as a bit prefix and I had to stop to ponder the utility in encoding a million-billion Terabytes.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 month ago (2 children)

But did they mean Quettabytes or Quebibytes? Because the difference is only around 250 000 times the size of the Internet.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Or, in other words, around 244 kibiInternets.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Bah, that's just a rounding error!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

I'm going to start giving my height in quectometres

[–] someguy3 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Googol 10^100.

(Not sure if that's official prefix.)

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 month ago

As far as I remember it isn't, it's just a named specific large number, like Avogadro's number or Graham's number.

[–] ch00f 67 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Damn, I was really holding out for Hella for 10^27

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

If 10^27^ would be Hella, would 10^-27^ then be Hello? 🙃

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Alas, the prefix H was already in use according to the page you linked. Disappointing.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

I don't think it's used as a prefix but as a unit symbol. Point still stands though, unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

The campaign hasn't made any progress since 2011 when Wolfram Alpha added support for it, a year after Google did. Google's calculator still does support it, though, so you can write queries like like "1Zbit/s * 1 year in hellabytes" (3.9 hellabytes), or "mass of the earth in hellagrams" (5.9 hellagrams).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Maybe there can be an exception when referring to Californium

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago

Urgh. Batter not.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Fun fact: they made these because Cookie Clicker needed them

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago

Cookie Clicker doesn't use SI prefixes. It just uses numbers (eg million, billion, octodecillion, etc...), which already extend into basically infinity I believe.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Glory to the metric system 🫡🇫🇷

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago

Bah, Imperial Units all the way. How else would I know how many stone I weigh, or how many King's Pubes I am tall? I don't want to convert from kilometers (whatever those are!) to gentlemans-strides or shilling miles to get where I'm going.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Great, now I can talk about lightyears using Fermi length as unit

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

I'm switching my digital calipers to quetta-planck lengths.

[–] rwdf 28 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

Actually, it's not ronnabyte, it's ribibyte ...

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

You gotta lick a frog or two to understand kibimibi.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago

Ronna and ronto: disgusting

Quetta and quecto: pleasing

[–] GrammarPolice 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Now we just need the cunni - 10⁶⁹

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

...necktie? Nickel?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

1/R = r

lovely

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You can combine these to have perfectly valid ways of saying 1.

I'll have ronnaronto cheeseburger.

[–] Lemminary 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

10^-30^ quesito

Ohhh, síiii

[–] werefreeatlast 4 points 1 month ago

10^32... Chilito

Yes! Yes baby yes!

[–] PunnyName 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Not to be confused with

SWOL

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

's' and 'S' could be usable for these.
The only problem being smol -> s mol -> smol mole ...

Because mol is another unit, making the usage of the full form ambiguous

[–] niktemadur 12 points 1 month ago

"What the hell are you kids doing down there in the basement, that you need these more specific units?"
"Um... nothing, sir. Everything is quite all right, quite all right."
"Hrumph! Very well then, I shall be in my study. And do try to keep the bloody racket down, for chrissakes!"
"Yes sir, thank you sir, goodnight sir... Whew... that was a close one!"

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Lets define here and now Hella (H) as 10^666. It's not SI official, but not "false".

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Yes 2025 will be great year.

[–] GreatRam 8 points 1 month ago
[–] portuga 5 points 1 month ago

Fun fact: in metric you don’t get as much shrinkage

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago