Lower case for kilo and hecto might have been chosen to avoid collisions with fundamental and derived units: K is Kelvin, H is Henries. Of course, micro collides with m (meters), but Mega was already taken.
Just a guess. I’m hoping we never have to deal with a TT (teraTesla). Well, that might happen in a star. wunder K6WRU CM87wj http://observer.wunderwood.org/ On Nov 18, 2014, at 4:24 PM, Fred Jensen <k6...@foothill.net> wrote: > So, why is that? Most of the abbreviations for metric [i.e. SI] prefixes > with positive exponents are upper-case ... M [mega], G [giga], T [tera], P > [peta], X [exa], Z [zetta], Y [yotta]. *All* of the abbreviations for > prefixes denoting negative exponents are lower-case ... d [deci], c [centi], > m [milli], u [micro, don't know how to get a mu in email], n [nano], p > [pico], f [femto], a [atto], z [zepto], y [yocto]. When I bleed into the > plasma machine each Fri, the blood center measures my total serum protein in > <somethings> per deciliter > > Only da [deca 10^1], h [hecto 10^2], and k [kilo 10^3] violate this pattern, > which seems very un-metric. One would think the prefix abbreviations would > be paired letters, positive exponents get upper-case and negative exponents > get lower-case. How hard is that? > > The prefixes themselves have some basis in real languages for smaller [in > absolute value] exponents ... I've always figured "milli" came from a French > word but since I speak almost no French, I'm not sure. I struggled through 4 > years of Latin in high school and I think I know the origins of centi, deca, > deci, and several others. Larger exponents in absolute value really appear > made up -- I mean, "yocto" and "Yotta"? > > So, I generally camp on 1406100 daHz looking for folks activating summits. > Please call me if you're on a pointy part of the Earth. > > 73, > > Fred K6DGW > - Northern California Contest Club > - CU in the 50th Running of the Cal QSO Party 3-4 Oct 2015 > - www.cqp.org > > On 11/18/2014 3:19 PM, Peter Eijlander (PA0PJE) wrote: >> It wasn't about Mr. Hertz it was about the kilo that consistently is >> written by a lot of folks with an upper case K, what I tried to focus >> on. I suppose everyone knows why Hertz was given to the cycles per >> second Phil was referring to...:-) > > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html > Message delivered to wun...@wunderwood.org ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
