Mega is a unit prefix in metric systems of units denoting a factor of one million (106 or 1000000). It has the unit symbol M. It was confirmed for use in the International System of Units (SI) in 1960. Mega comes from Ancient Greek: μέγας, romanized: mégas, lit.'great'.[1]

Common examples of usage

Exponentiation

When units occur in exponentiation, such as in square and cubic forms, any multiples-prefix is considered part of the unit, and thus included in the exponentiation.

  • 1 Mm2 means one square megametre or the size of a square of 1000000m by 1000000m or 1012m2, and not 1000000square metres (106 m2).
  • 1 Mm3 means one cubic megametre or the size of a cube of 1000000m by 1000000m by 1000000m or 1018 m3, and not 1000000cubic metres (106 m3)

Computing

In some fields of computing, mega may sometimes denote 1,048,576 (220) of information units, for example, a megabyte, a megaword, but denotes 1000000 (106) units of other quantities, for example, transfer rates: 1megabit/s = 1000000bit/s. The prefix mebi- has been suggested as a prefix for 220 to avoid ambiguity.

PrefixBase 10 Decimal Adoption
[nb 1]
NameSymbol
quettaQ1030 10000000000000000000000000000002022[2]
ronnaR1027 1000000000000000000000000000
yottaY1024 10000000000000000000000001991
zettaZ1021 1000000000000000000000
exaE1018 10000000000000000001975[3]
petaP1015 1000000000000000
teraT1012 10000000000001960
gigaG109 1000000000
megaM106 10000001873
kilok103 10001795
hectoh102100
decada10110
1001
decid10−1 0.11795
centic10−2 0.01
millim10−3 0.001
microμ10−6 0.0000011873
nanon10−9 0.0000000011960
picop10−12 0.000000000001
femtof10−15 0.0000000000000011964
attoa10−18 0.000000000000000001
zeptoz10−21 0.0000000000000000000011991
yoctoy10−24 0.000000000000000000000001
rontor10−27 0.0000000000000000000000000012022[2]
quectoq10−30 0.000000000000000000000000000001
Notes
  1. Prefixes adopted before 1960 already existed before SI. The introduction of the CGS system was in 1873.

See also

References

  1. "Oxford English Dictionary (OED Online)". www.oed.com (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. June 2001. Retrieved 2017-09-18. Origin: A borrowing from Greek. Etymon: Greek μεγα-. ... Forming scientific and technical terms with the sense 'very large', 'comparatively large', or (esp. in Pathol.) 'abnormally large', often having correlatives beginning micro-, and sometimes also synonyms beginning macro-.
  2. 1 2 "On the extension of the range of SI prefixes". 18 November 2022. Retrieved 5 February 2023.
  3. "Metric (SI) Prefixes". NIST.
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