Talk:Non-SI unit prefix

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article was originally named Obsolete SI prefixes.

Contents 1 Name or scope of article is wrong 2 Brontobyte 3 Remove the "guacamole" joke 4 "Nega"? 5 Original research

[edit] Name or scope of article is wrong

This article is badly named, and the merging here of Obsolete metric prefixes was wrong.

Prefixes like myria, and like hectokilo- and micromicro-, are not unofficial "SI prefixes". They are not and never have been SI prefixes. They were legitimate prefixes in earlier versions of the metric system.

There could legitimately be an article about expansions which somebody of some credibility has suggested for future expansions of SI. After all, unlike other systems, the metric system is the one which is still fully supported and updated. But that is an entirely different class of prefixes from those which were formerly used, but which nobody claims to be acceptable for use with SI, that nobody is advocating for use with SI.

Either the article should be renamed with a more descriptive, inclusive name, or these prefixes should be put back into two different articles (each of which properly named—the old obsolete SI prefixes was also a totally erroneous name. Gene Nygaard 02:12, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

Well, originally there were a bunch of stubs about all the different prefixes. Following a suggestion on Category talk:Bogus SI prefixes, I merged them, and also mentioned myria and myrio (erroneously calling them SI). The double prefixes were added later by others. The merging of myria and myrio was also done by others.

Your main concern is that these prefixes are not in SI. I can see your point, though what I meant when I named the article was indeed that the prefixes weren't in SI. If we are to revise the organization of this section, I think we should make a distinction between units that were never official and those from other systems. First we would mention the prefixes never part of a real system, and after that put obsolete prefixes. Current proposals for expanding SI should go elsewhere (probably the main SI prefix article). How does Non-SI prefixes sound? If you have a better title we can use that. Eric119 03:12, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

That's about the best Idea I could come up with, too. Doesn't seem very elegant, but probably the simplest and clearest way to do it. Maybe clarify a little with Non-SI unit prefix or non-SI measurement prefixes (singular or plural? Generally article titles are singular), because there are lots of prefixes which have nothing to do with units. Without it, lots of people might wonder what "non-SI" means, don't you think? Something that would make the meaning clearer in, for example, a category listing, where there is no surrounding text from which the context can be made clearer, or a "See also" listing which could but usually don't include such explanations. Gene Nygaard 03:32, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

P.S. The title of the SI prefix article has the opposite problem, of being too narrow in scope. Many of those prefixes long predate SI, and were and still are used in other systems as well. Gene Nygaard 03:35, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that Non-SI unit prefix is the best title. The SI prefix title is best left as is. I added a sentence to try to make the situation clearer. Eric119 23:49, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Brontobyte

70.177.183.158 19:22, 9 September 2007 (UTC) I take a slight bit of umbrage -- but only the tiniest bit -- at the characterization of 'brontobyte' as a fake term. When a couple of workmates and I first thought up the term in late 1989, the largest officially-named term we could find was exabyte. We started talking about brontobytes when dealing with various software/systems developers we were working with - the really smart ones questioned what the heck we were talking about - but decided early on that trying to fix the name brontobyte on something that was only just larger than an exabyte was not the best use of such a wonderful name. So we decided to make brontobyte a floating point. Once you get to the largest officially-named size for bytes, you can use brontobyte. A great idea, we thought. We still do. Rick K 20:21, 09 September 2007 (UTC)

That actually makes a lot of sense. Can anyone find a proper source? Dark-Fire 21:42, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Remove the "guacamole" joke

It may be amusing to invent a new "guaca-" prefix, such that a guacamole of molecules is a single molecule - but this is supposed to be a serious encyclopedia. One humorous reference to this unit on the Stanford University website does not make it a noteworthy unit. Currently about half of the opening text in this article is devoted to explaining the guacamole joke, as well as a line in the table. I would vote that we remove it from the opening text and from the table, and perhaps add a short "Humor/Humour" section at the end, if we really want it. --Mtford 09:25, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. This article is not supposed to be about joke prefixes. Eric119 16:39, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the "gauca" information and prefix, but have left the external link to a page describing the joke. Eric119 00:23, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

it is also a planet on the edge of our solar sistem

[edit] "Nega"?

No source is given for this "nega" prefix. Can anyone find a source for this or should it be erased? Sniffnoy 21:52, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Original research

There is an awful lot of original research in this article. The "Proposed and unofficial prefixes" section lists prefixes "based on the names of the Marx Brothers" (grouchi-, harpi-, gummo-, chico-, zeppo-). No reference to any authoritative source supplied, of course. And the entire "Proposed systems" section relates to a single page on a personal website. I strongly recommend deleting both of these sections in their entirety unless the proposals can be shown to have serious academic support. Vilĉjo 00:45, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree - clearly sources for a lot of the information cannot be found or are unreliable. I would recommend removing everything in the article for which sources have not yet been found, so the article can be rebuilt with verifiable information only. Dark-Fire 20:49, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

The Marx Brothers prefixes, at least, we can keep. See the Jargon File link at the bottom. Not "authoritative", exactly, but this is a page of non-SI unit prefixes, so that's probably about as good as you're going to get. I'm pretty certain every prefix listed can be found at at least one of the sources listed, though I haven't checked recently. But I'll agree that many of these sources aren't actually worth anything; we should probably clear out all the ones that nobody uses, are essentially hoaxes, or just happened to be suggested by some guy somewhere. Sniffnoy 21:05, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I have to disagree on the Marx Brothers prefixes. Are there any – and I mean even one – serious documented real-world usages of these prefixes? (NB. that's usages, not mentions, i.e. have they been actually employed rather than listed in hypothetical tables.) If not, they're little different from the guaca- prefix mentioned above, something which (as you express it) "just happened to be suggested by some guy somewhere", no matter how many people on Usenet may have been sufficiently amused to say what a great idea it is. Can we really imagine that zeppo- (10^-33) is ever going to be used when we already have the official zepto- (10^-21)? Empto-, hepa-, otta-, myrio- and myria-, on the other hand, all have actual histories of usage, however tenuous or temporary. Pretty much all the rest can and should be ditched, IMO. Vilĉjo 00:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)