[time-nuts] SI Unit Problems
Mike S
mikes at flatsurface.com
Wed Apr 6 02:14:03 UTC 2011
At 09:01 PM 4/5/2011, ehydra wrote...
>the k is low but should be K to be consistent (M, G, etc).
That's historical. All of the original prefixes (from 1795) were lower
case. When new ones extended the magnitudes (in 1960), capitalization
was necessary to distinguish M(ega) from m(icro). They also chose to
capitalize all higher order prefixes. Prefixes da, h, and k weren't
capitalized to maintain backward consistency.
I suppose they could have used "me" or "ma" as the prefix for mega,
just as d(ek)a was originally used to distinguish it from d(eci), but
then two character prefixes (or alternate, non-conflicting ones) would
also be needed for P(eta)/p(ico), Z(etta)/z(epto), and Y(otta)/y(octo)
when things were extended even further.
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