The reason why we have chosen a base-10 decimal system is because of how wonderfully efficient and flexible it is. So they will all change the magnitude of a unit by a minimum of a single power of 10, but more commonly by a factor of 1000. Furthermore, all of the metric prefixes are based on powers of ten. This is how metric prefixes and SI prefixes act upon a unit. In scientific notation this is written as. We can apply the prefix nano- to literally any unit, such as the nanometer or nanojoule, which are billionths of those units. Likewise a nanosecond is a billionth of a second, an incredibly small interval of time, used predominantly in fields like cosmology or quantum mechanics. Mathematically speaking, in terms of fractions, to create a microsecond we multiply 1 second by (or divide by 1,000,000 if you prefer, it means the same thing). So when we are talking about a microsecond we are talking about a millionth of the base unit of time, the second. Micro- is the metric prefix which refers to 1 millionth of a unit, while the metric prefix nano- refers to 1 billionth of a unit. A good example that will probably be commonly known are units such as the microsecond or the nanosecond. So far I covered a few metric prefixes that make a unit larger, but we also have metric prefixes that make units that are fractions of a base unit. Literally any SI Unit can be changed in scale with one of the metric prefixes. This includes the units for velocity in meters per second, volume in meters cubed, time in seconds, area in meters squared, electrical current in amps, force in Newtons, energy in joules, and so on. Likewise, if we have 26 megabytes of information we actually have 26 million bytes of information.Įach of the metric prefixes with their unique numerical value can be applied to any of the SI units of science. Since giga means billion, what this then means is that we have two billion bytes of information. We can have two gigabytes of information. However, as soon as we attach a prefix to it, the number of bytes changes. In this case we know exactly how many bytes we have, 1 and 47, respectively. For example, we can have a single byte or 47 bytes of information. So in the context that we discussed them above, the byte is the base unit which the metric prefix applies to and acts upon to tell us the order of magnitude of the number of bytes. Mega means million, giga means billion, and tera means trillion. They each have a specific numerical value attached to them. The Numerical Value of Metric PrefixesĮach of the examples I listed above ( mega, giga, tera, and so on) are not just random words. Specifically they are actually SI Prefixes because they were developed within the SI Units System for science, as there have been different variations of metric prefixes in the past, which do not conform to the base-10 decimal system of the metric system. When you hear or read words such as “giga” as in gigabyte, “tera” as in terabyte, or “mega” perhaps in the form of megapixel or megajoule, each of these are metric prefixes. Each word has both a numerical value and symbol attached to it so that we can combine the symbol of the metric prefix with the symbol of the unit. The metric prefixes have been standardized to fit with the International System of Units. Within the metric system they indicate precisely what power of ten we multiply or divide a unit by to uniformly make the unit larger or smaller so that it applies more directly to the magnitude of the quantities being measured. Columbia University.Metric prefixes are words attached to a given unit with the Metric System of the SI Units system which essentially change the scale of that unit. “Private tutoring and its impact on students' academic achievement, formal schooling, and educational inequality in Korea.” Unpublished doctoral thesis. Tutors, instructors, experts, educators, and other professionals on the platform are independent contractors, who use their own styles, methods, and materials and create their own lesson plans based upon their experience, professional judgment, and the learners with whom they engage. Varsity Tutors connects learners with a variety of experts and professionals. Varsity Tutors does not have affiliation with universities mentioned on its website. Media outlet trademarks are owned by the respective media outlets and are not affiliated with Varsity Tutors.Īward-Winning claim based on CBS Local and Houston Press awards. Names of standardized tests are owned by the trademark holders and are not affiliated with Varsity Tutors LLC.Ĥ.9/5.0 Satisfaction Rating based upon cumulative historical session ratings through 12/31/20.
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