metric : Java Glossary

home page go to the Java Glossary Home go to the Computer Buyer’s Glossary up Google search web for more information on this topic jump to foot of page translate this page with Babelfish punctuation 0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z (all) ©1996-2012 Roedy Green, Canadian Mind Products
metric
A decimal system of measures used nearly everywhere but in the USA. Even in the USA, it is used in medicine, scientific and engineering work, and for international trade. It is based on standard prefixes. e.g gram (the mass of about a sugar cube of water), kilogram (a 100 grams), milligram (one thousandth of a gram) or metre (a little longer than a yardstick), kilometre (1000 metres, about 5/8 mile), millimetre (one thousandth of a metre).

Because RAM (Random Access Memory) necessarily comes in modules sizes of even powers of two, the prefix scheme was modified for measuring bytes by even powers of two. Unfortunately, vendors use the binary scheme for measuring RAM capacity but the decimal scheme for measuring hard disk capacity. I suspect they do this primarily to inflate the apparent disk capacity by 7%, and because their competitors also do this, rather than as protest against the heretic binary RAM byte measuring prefix convention.

prefix American English Standard Decimal
Multiplier		 Power of 10 Byte Measure
Multiplier		 Byte Measure
Power of 2
exa quintillion
(British trillion)		 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 1018 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 260
peta quadrillion 1,000,000,000,000,000 1015 1,125,899,906,842,624 250
tera trillion
(British billion)		 1,000,000,000,000 1012 1,099,511,627,776 240
giga billion 1,000,000,000 109 1,073,741,824 230
mega million 1,000,000 106 1,048,576 220
kilo thousand 1000 103 1024 210
hecto hundred 100 102    
deca ten 10 101    
deci tenth 1/10 10-1    
centi hundredth 1/100 10-2    
milli thousandth 1/1000 10-3    
micro millionth 1/1,000,000 10-6    
nano billionth 1/1,000,000,000 10-9    
pico trillionth
(British billionth)		 1/1,000,000,000,000 10-12    
femto quadrillionth 1/1,000,000,000,000,000 10-15    
atto quintillionth
(British trillionth)		 1/1,000,000,000,000,000,000 10-18    
You might wonder why the USA alone sticks with the old complicated Imperial system of measure. The Christian right lobby in the USA hates metric because it was invented by atheists, and the worst kind, French.
CMP homejump to top You can get the freshest copy of this page from: or possibly from your local J: drive (Java virtual drive/mindprod.com website mirror)
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/metric.html J:\mindprod\jgloss\metric.html
logo
Please email your , letters to the editor, errors, omissions, typos, formatting errors, ambiguities, unclear wording, broken/redirected link reports, suggestions to improve this page or comments to Roedy Green : feedback email. If you want your message, your name or email kept confidential, not considered for public posting, please explicitly specify that. Unless you state otherwise, I will treat your message as a letter to the editor that I may or may not publish in the feedback section. After that, it will be too late to retract it. If you disagree with something I said, please quote it and cite the web page where you found it, tell me why you think it is wrong, and, if possible, provide some supporting evidence. Threatening to kill me or spouting obscenities has yet to persuade me to change my mind.
mindprod.com IP:[65.110.21.43]
view BlogYour face IP:[38.107.179.211]
You are visitor number 9,480.