![]() 001 Kiloampere, or 1000 Amperes is 1 Kiloampere. Going in the opposite direction, 1 Ampere is. ![]() Going further, 1 milliampere is equivalent to 1000 microamperes and so on. A milliampere is 1 thousandth of the unit Ampere hence 1 Ampere is equal to 1000 milliamperes. The beautiful thing about these metric prefixes is that, once you get the hang of conversion between a few of them, translating that ability to all the other prefixes is easy.Īs a first simple example, lets translate 1 Ampere (A) into smaller values. As you'll see in the Bits and Bytes section, there is also some confusion with k and K when dealing with the binary (base 2) prefixes. * Note: Since the upper case 'K' was already used to describe Kelvins, a lower case 'k' was chosen to represent the prefix kilo. As an example, one mW (milliwatt) does not equal one MW (megawatt). This allows you to distinguish between the two when they use the same letter. One thing to notice about the prefixes for small values, is that their shorthand notations are all lower case while the large number prefixes are upper case (with the exception of kilo-*, hecto- and deca-). Now, instead one trillionth of a second, it can be referred to as a picosecond. There are also prefixes for helping communicate tiny numbers as well. This allows us to describe incredibly large numbers of units succinctly. Instead of saying 3,200,000,000 Hertz, you can say 3.2 GigaHertz, or 3.2 GHz for shorthand written notation. These above prefixes dramatically help describe quanities of units in large amounts. While these prefixes cover a rang of 10 -3 to 10 3, many electronic values can have a much larger range. However, as you'll soon see, when learning about electronics and computer science, the range of prefixes well exceeds the standard six. You may have even learned a fun mnemonic to go along with these such as Kangaroos Have Dirty Underwear During Cold Months. ![]() These are what we'll consider the standard six prefixes taught in most High School science courses. When first learning about metric prefixes, chances are you were taught these six prefixes first: Prefix (Symbol) Now that we know the units, let's look at how they can be augmented with prefixes to make them even more usable! In dealing with electronics, there are a handful of units we'll be encountering more often than others. Using the units above means everyone is speaking the same language. While we can still use units like feet or miles for distance (instead of meters), liters to describe volume (instead of m 3), and Fahrenheit or Celsius to describe temperature (instead of °K), the units above are a standardized way for every scientist to share their measurements. This standardized system has come to be called the \ International System of Units \, abbreviated SI. In order to better communicate measurements, we needed a standardized system of units, which every scientist and measurer could use to share their findings. For example, length can be measured by the foot, meter, fathom, chain, parsec, league, and so on. There are now dozens of units to describe physical quantities. We've been measuring stuff for millennia, and our units used for those measures have been evolving since then.
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