Return-Path: Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.21.1 #21.19) id ; Tue, 11 Feb 92 13:02 EST Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA19692; Tue, 11 Feb 92 12:49:39 EST Received: from cunixf.cc.columbia.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA20109; Tue, 11 Feb 92 12:35:30 -0500 Received: from cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu by cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA24372; Tue, 11 Feb 92 12:35:34 EST Message-Id: <9202111735.AA24372@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1) with BSMTP id 2082; Tue, 11 Feb 92 12:33:08 EST Received: by CUVMB (Mailer R2.07) id 5297; Tue, 11 Feb 92 12:32:53 EST Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1992 12:31:00 EST Reply-To: Guy Steele Sender: Lojban list From: Guy Steele Subject: Billions X-To: C.J.Fine%BRADFORD.AC.UK@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu X-Cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann In-Reply-To: CJ FINE's message of Tue, 11 Feb 1992 09:17:37 GMT <9202111006.AA19973@Early-Bird.Think.COM> Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Tue Feb 11 13:02:53 1992 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1992 09:17:37 GMT From: CJ FINE X-To: lojbab@GREBYN.com ... (I happen to think that anything outside Mego- to micro- is a worthless accretion to the metric system, but that is another matter). I assure you that those who are buying memory chips and disk drives for their computers are very interested in nanoseconds and gigabytes. Terabytes and teraflops have become common terms of discussion over the last few years as it becomes apparent that their implementation will soon be a reality (indeed, terabyte tape backup was available well over ten years ago). Laser impulses for fiber optics are best measured in picoseconds, if not femtoseconds, and we are already beginning to think about petabyte computer memories. Maybe the man on the street doesn't use the more extreme prefixes every day, but there are thousands of people who do. The mass of the known universe is approximately 10^80 times the mass of an electron. It seems relatively safe to say, then, that 26 prefixes ought to suffice for nearly any conceivable purpose relating to physical measurement (81/3 = 27, and the one in the middle needs no prefix)! We already have atto femto pico nano micro milli / kilo mega giga tera peta exa and these twelve constitute about half of what we might potentially ever need in the future, which is not bad coverage--for now. --Guy Steele