Metric Prefixes

The following table lists most of the SI prefixes and their values as powers of 10. In the table the abbreviations for the prefix is in bold type and the abbreviation for the basic label is in ordinary text.

Prefix Value Example Description
pico \(10^{-12}\) pm 1 trillionth of a meter
nano \(10^{-9}\) ng 1 billionth of a gram
micro \(10^{-6}\) \(\boldsymbol{\mu}\)m 1 millionth of a meter
milli \(10^{-3}\) mm 1 thousandth of a meter
kilo \(10^3\) kg 1000 grams
Mega \(10^6\) MPa 1 million Pascal
Giga \(10^9\) GW 1 billion watts
Tera \(10^{12}\) TB 1 tera bytes
centi \(10^{-2}\) cm 1 hundredth of a meter