As the global population passes 8 billion, we need new units of measurement.

In comparison, a ronna or a quetta?

For the first time this century, scientists gathering outside of Paris on Friday have increased the world’s measuring unit systems as the population of the planet passes 8 billion.

Due to the rapid pace of scientific progress and the massive global storage of data on the web, in smartphones, and in the cloud, the very terminology used to quantify weight and size need expanding.

On Friday, a British scientist spearheaded an effort to add daring new prefixes to words for sizes both enormous and microscopic….

Prefixes like milli-, as in “milligram,” are common knowledge. Dr. Richard Brown, head of Metrology at the United Kingdom’s National Physical Laboratory and the man responsible for proposing the four new prefixes, explained their significance to The Associated Press by saying, “These are prefixes for the biggest and smallest levels ever measured.”

The datasphere has grown enormously over the past 30 years, and scientists working in the field have come to terms with the fact that there are no longer adequate words to express the vast quantities of data that may be stored.

He defined these phrases as “future” or “upcoming.”

Large numbers include the “ronna” (with 27 zeroes following the one) and the “quetta” (with 30 zeroes).

Quantum science and particle physics require smaller numbers, and their ant-sized counterparts, the “ronto” (with 27 zeros after the decimal point) and the “quecto” (with 30 zeros after the decimal point), symbolize them.,,

Representatives from 64 countries at the General Conference on Weights and Measures in Versailles, west of Paris, adopted the new prefixes on Friday after hearing them presented by Brown.

The International Conference on Weights and Measures is the highest decision-making body within the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, and it meets every four years in France.

There haven’t been any changes to the terms of service since 1991, therefore the new ones are effective immediately.

Brown recited a list of the tiniest and largest items discovered by humanity, saying the new terminology made it easier to define what scientists already know about.

A single electron has a mass of one rontogram, which you may not have known. Also, did you know that storing one byte of information on a mobile device adds one quectogram to its overall weight?

Jupiter, being a greater distance away, has a mass of two simply quettagrams. “The circumference of the entire observable universe is just one ronnameter,” Brown added, which is incredible.

He went into detail about how the new names weren’t selected at random, saying that the new prefixes all had to begin with letters that weren’t already in use.

The letters “r” and “q” were the only ones available. Therefore, there is a precedent that they resemble Greek letters in sound, and that prefixes for large numbers end with a ‘a’ and prefixes for tiny numbers end with a ‘o,’” he elaborated.

That time had come, and it had come quickly. New terminology is required, Brown said. The world has changed dramatically during the past few decades.

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