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Dec. 20, 2006 The SI, or Metric System, is far superior to the American System of weights and measures, and a real convenience in science and engineering. But it still has its foibles, especially in conjunction with our decimal numbering system, with its triads of zeroes in numerals like 1,000,000 and 1,000,000,000. Our number system is called ‘decimal’ because it has 10 as its base. There is nothing magical about 10 though; a number system can be built on any natural number from 2 on up. We just happen to have 10 fingers. ‘Powers’ of 10 are numbers like 10; 100; 1000; 10,000; 100,000; and so on. Each power of 10 consists of the digit 1 and a string of 0’s. In so-called engineering notation, used in calculators and computers, instead of keying 100,000, we may key 1E5, which means ‘one times ten to the fifth power’. On the keypad, this might be EE (enter exponent), but I’ll just use E. The 5 in 1E5 can be thought of as merely the number of zeroes. So we have 1E1, 1E2, 1E3, 1E4, 1E5, etc., for the five numbers instanced above. The number 1 may also be called 1E0. Additionally, we also 1E-1, 1E-2, 1E-3, 1E-4, IE-5, etc., for .1, .01, .001, .0001 and .00001. The minus sign does not mean ‘minus’ in this case, but ‘negative’, and corresponds to a different key on the keypad, sometimes marked (-). For such numbers, we have to count the decimal point as one zero. Thus 1E-5 represents .00001, with 4 zeroes and one decimal point. So the whole spectrum from -10 to 10 looks like this: 1E-10, 1E-9, 1E-8, 1E-7, 1E-6, 1E-5, 1E-4, 1E-3, 1E-2, 1E-1, 1E0, 1E1, 1E2, 1E3, 1E4, 1E5, 1E6, 1E7, 1E8, 1E9, 1E10. Of course, we needn’t stop at 10, we can go as high as we like. For example, the farthest known heavenly bodies are at a distance of 4E25 meters. Although the abbreviation for meters is usually a lower-case ‘m’, let me use upper-case ‘M’ for esthetic reasons. Then we might transcribe the above number as 4E25M. The first number needn’t be a whole number; we might have 4.2E25M or 4.1764E25M. In the SI, or Metric System, there is a whole dictionary full of prefixes that can be added to nouns denoting simple units. Thus, for meters, we have the following series: yoctometer, zeptometer, attometer, femtometer, picometer, nanometer, micrometer, millimeter, meter, kilometer, megameter, gigameter, tetrameter, pentameter, exameter, zettameter and yottameter. This is so ridiculous it makes me roar with laughter. These are words for 1E-24M, 1E-21M, 1E-18M, 1E-15M, 1E-12M, 1E-9M, 1E-6M, 1E-3M, 1E0M, 1E3M, 1E6M, 1E9M, 1E12M, 1E15M, 1E18, 1E21M and 1E24M. But why do I need a phrase like ‘one exameter’ when I can just say ‘1E18M’. I don’t have to think at all to see that I have 1 followed by 18 zeroes, i.e., 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 meters. The only thing I would do is use a new letter, say F, for E-. Then we would have: 1F24M, 1F21M, 1F18M, 1F15M, 1F12M, 1F9M, 1F6M, 1F3M, 1E0M, 1E3M, 1E6M, 1E9M, 1E12M, 1E15M, 1E18, 1E21M and 1E24M. This is merely to simplify pronunciation, for example: one-F-two-four-M, instead of ‘one yoctometer’. If you don’t use yoctometers all the time, you’ll probably have to look it up in an online dictionary or somewhere when you do see it, but 1F24M is simple and self-explanatory. The yottameter system stops at 24, but the system I propose goes on forever. What if I want to say 1E66M? Shall I say ‘one tredecillion yottameters’? And what about the ones that don’t embody multiples of three zeroes? 1E21M is no holier than 1E23M, but I have to say ‘one hundred zeptometers’ for the latter, because 1E23 doesn’t have a yotta-type prefix. Then to complicate the issue, you have do deal with this series of multiplicative numeral nouns: one, thousand, million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, etc.. The real nut is that words like ‘quadrillion’ or ‘quintillion’ seem to suggest ‘four’ and five’, but a quadrillion has 5 sets of 3 zeroes and a quintillion has 6. There’s an historical explanation of course, but I won’t get into that right now. Nor will I get into British formations like ‘milliard’ and so on. Confusion reigns as it is. Combining these two awkward systems, we have the following absolutely ludicrous equalities: one yottameter = one thousand zettameters = one million exameters = one billion petameters = one trillion terameters = one quadrillion gigameters = one quintillion megameters = one sextillion kilometers = one septillion meters = one octillion millimeters = one nonillion micrometers = one decillion nanometers = one undecillion picometers = one duodecillion attometers = one tredecillion femtometers = one quattuordecillion zeptometers = one quindecillion yoctometers. I swear to goodness I am not joking. This is real. All of these phrases would be replaced by 1E24M! ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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