Re: Universal Measures

At 10:34 05/10/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>
>>         I never heard of miria, and I'm not so sure for the big prefixes (is
>> there really a gap between eta and dzetta or did I make a mistake?).
>
>A few.  It's "exa", not "eta", and the one after that is "peta".
>I think your "eta" must be the result of a mental merger between
>"exa" and "peta".
>
        Thank you, the more I thought about it and the more I thought I made
mistakes.

>The next levels are "zepto" and "yocto" for 1E-21 and 1E-24, and
>"zetta" and "yotta" for 1E21 and 1E24.  These are obviously
>Anglicized French for "seven" and "eight".
>
        I really learned zetto and yotto, maybe there are various manners to
write it (I like zetto and yotto for the parallel with zetta and yotta).

        Do they really come from French? If so, I wonder why. Do you know
the story of those suffixes, when and how they were chosen?


>--
>John Cowan      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
>        You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
>        You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
>                Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)
>
>
                                                Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

homepage: http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepage/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html