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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