Earth weighs in at six ronnagrams as new prefixes picked for big and small

The experts voted for an expansion of the universe, which can be described as vanishingly small and preposterously large.

In a vote at the General Conference on Weights and Measures in Versailles on Friday, the International System of Units accepted four new prefixes with immediate effect, marking the first such changes in more than 30 years.

At the top of the scale, there is a billion billion billion and a thousand billion billion, respectively. The ronto is a billionth of a billionth and the quicto is a thousand times smaller.

The planet can now be said to weigh six ronnagrams, and Jupiter two. An electron weighs about a rontogram, and a single bit of data on a mobile phone adds about 10 qutograms to it.

Some less scientific proposals including bronto and hella were defeated in the unanimous vote.

The main reason to go to the high end is because data science requires large quantities of data to be described. For the next 25 years, this should be future proof.

The only two letters left in the alphabet that are not used in measurement are the first two words of the chosen prefixes. The b forbronto and h forhella are used for the same thing. The purpose of the units is to ensure clear communication. It is necessary that you have an official name that everyone agrees on.