1 Introduction

Computer scientists just love to use impressive-sounding words when discussing reall big and really small numbers. For example, we talk about kilobytes and megabytes, milliseconds and microseconds. What does all of this mean and what comes next?

2 Big Numbers

Here are the prefixes for big numbers:

Prefix	Power of 10	Description	Number
kilo	3	thousands	1,000
mega	6	millions	1,000,000
giga	9	billions	1,000,000,000
tera	12	trillions	1,000,000,000,000
peta	15	quadrillions	1,000,000,000,000,000
exa	18	quintillions	1,000,000,000,000,000,000
zetta	21	sextillions	1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
yotta	24	septillions	1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

3 Small Numbers

Here are the prefixes for small numbers:

Prefix	Power of 10	Description	Number
milli	-3	thousandths	0.001
micro	-6	millionths	0.000001
nano	-9	billionths	0.000000001
pico	-12	trillionths	0.000000000001
femto	-15	quadrillionths	0.000000000000001
atto	-18	quintillionths	0.000000000000000001
zepto	-21	sextillionths	0.000000000000000000001
yocto	-24	septillionths	0.000000000000000000000001