| FACTOR | ...or in full ... | or in | SI | SI |
| 1,0E+24 1,0E+21 1,0E+18 1,0E+15 1,0E+12 1,0E+9 1,0E+6 1,0E+3 1,0E+2 1,0E+1 1,0E-1 1,0E-2 1,0E-3 1,0E-6 1,0E-9 1,0E-12 1,0E-15 1,0E-18 1,0E-21 1,0E-24 | 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 1 000 000 000 000 000 1 000 000 000 000 1 000 000 000 1 000 000 1 000 100 10 0,1 0,01 0,001 0,000 001 0,000 000 001 0,000 000 000 001 0,000 000 000 000 001 0,000 000 000 000 000 001 0,000 000 000 000 000 000 001 0,000 000 000 000 000 000 000 001 | septillion sextillion quintillion quadrillion trillion billion million thousand hundred ten tenth hundredth thousandth millionth billionth trillionth quadrillionth quintillionth sextillionth septillionth | yotta- | Y |
Note: A very common mistake is that the prefix milli- stands for a millionth.
WRONG!!
As can be seen from the table above, milli stands for a thousandth. It comes from the French, mille for 1000 - they could not use it for the 1000 prefix as that was bagged by the Greek word, kilo
Note: The prefix hecto- to centi- are not 'preferred prefix' but referred to as 'other prefix' by SI, though centi- is in common use as in cubic centimetre or cc.
Le Système International d'Unités (SI) name the prefix giga and nano, milliard and milliardth respectivly. The wording shown here was approved by the General Conference on Weights and Measures and has been adopted in practice.
The scientific notation used in the factors column helps to reduce long numbers to a manageable width. By convention, the number is always shown as a unit [ 1 to 9 ], with decimal places chosen to suit accuracy, and the size of the number is adjusted by changing the magnitude [E+?]. E+01 means moving the decimal point one space to the right so 1.00E+01 is shorthand for 10, then 1.33E+00 stays at 1.33 and 1.33E-01 becomes 0.133. This format tends to be used when the figure gets longer so E+09 or E-09 cuts out a lot of noughts.Don't confuse scientific notation with powers. You can say, quite rightly, that a million is 10 to the power of 6 [ 10^6 or 
] but if you confused it with the scientific notation and had 1^7 the answer would be 1 and not a million ! [ you say one times one is one, seven times, and the answer is still one ] So it's all a matter of conventions - if we all follow the same rules then the information is passed correctly from one brain to another which is, after all, the object of writing something down.
For metric conversions go to a unit starting with -
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w y
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