DISTANCE

MASS

TIME

FREQUENCY



Metric Multipliers

Prefix Name Power Multiple Submultiple Power Name Prefix
1
K Kilo- 103 1,000 1 / 1,000 10-3 milli- m
M Mega- 106 1,000,000 1 / 1,000,000 10-6 micro- u
G Giga- 109 1,000,000,000 1 / 1,000,000,000 10-9 nano- n
T Tera- 1012 1,000,000,000,000 1 / 1,000,000,000,000 10-12 pico- p
P Peta- 1015 1,000,000,000,000,000 1 / 1,000,000,000,000,000 10-15 femto- f
P Exa- 1018 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 1 / 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 10-18 atto- a

Examples:

Distance:
  • A Kilometer contains a thousand meters, a million millimeters, a trillion nanometers.
  • A millimeter is a thousandth of a meter, a millionth of a Kilometer, or a thousand micrometers.
  • The wavelength of most visible light is about half a micrometer or 500 nanometers; the distance between two atoms in a molecule is about one nanometer (x-ray wavelength).
  • The distance to the moon is 239 Kilo-miles or about 380 Mega-meters (380,000 Km); the sun is about 150 million Kilometers away, or 150 Terameters, or .15 Pm, or 150 quadrillion millimeters.

    Mass:

  • A kilogram is a thousand grams, a million milligrams, a billion micrograms.
  • A gram is a thousandth of a Kilogram, a thousand milligrams, a million micrograms.

    Time & frequency:

  • A microsecond is a million picoseconds, or one sixty-millionth of a minute.
  • A 1 MegaHertz processor does a million things per second, or one thing per microsecond.
  • A 100 MHz processor does one every 10 nanoseconds; a 100 ns memory operates at 10 MHz.
  • A 33 MHz processor does one thing every 30 ns; a 25 ns memory operates at 40 MHz.

    Other:

  • The speed of light is about 300,000 Kilometers per second, or 300 Mm/sec, or 0.3 Gm/s, or 300 meters per microsecond, or about .30 m (11 inches) per nanosecond, or about a third of a millimeter (1/75 of an inch) per picosecond. (It's not just a good idea, it's the law! :-)
  • Sunlight travels 150 million Km to us in about 500 seconds (8 minutes); Luna is over a light-second away.
  • There are a few Giga-people on earth. The federal budget is a a few Tera-bucks.
  • There are over a million Exa-molecules of water in an ounce.