TERA.THD --- Copyright 1987 by Phil Wheeler An original compilation of Compuserve Model 100 Forum messages for use by Forum members only. This thread started out as a discussion of PICO magazine. Then, one user decided (reason unknown!) to define what "pico" means. Eventually, the messages centered on mathematical whimsy. I saved and posted this thread at the special request of Denny Thomas [see the last message] -- perhaps so he can study it in depth at a later date! Message range: 146955 to 147065 Dates: 5/2/87 to 5/2/87 Fm: CHARLES JACKSON 76703,2000 To: Tony Anderson 76703,4062 PICO IS GREEK OR LATIN FOR VERY SMALL. IN THE ENGINEERING COMMUNITY IT IS USED AS A PREFIX MEANING THE NEXT SIZE SMALLER THAN MICRO, I.E. MICROFARADS, PICOFARADS. THE NEXT SIZE DOWN IS NANO. EX/ Fm: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 To: CHARLES JACKSON 76703,2000 OK, you guys. Trivia question of the day is "What does prefix 'Tera' mean?" (yes, I DO know!). Fm: Tony Anderson 76703,4062 To: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 Isn't that the reddish-brown clay the Mexican's use for making pots? - As in "tera-cotta"? Isn't that the word that Anoinette Bower used to describe "dirt" in the old Twilight Zone episode entitled, "Probe 7 - Over and Out"? Isn't that the name of the family homestead in "Gone with the Wind"? "Lawdy, missy Scarlet, is we 'uns goin' back to Tera?" Isn't that the first part of the name of the Iranian city, Tera-Ann? Isn't that Latin for "firm" or "solid", as in "Tera firma"? Wasn't that a battle cry of the Whigs Party, who were opposed to the ideas of the Tories? "Ter a Tory"? Isn't that the first part of the name of the city in Indiana? "Tera Haute"? Doesn't that have something to do with turtles? "Tera-pin"? What? None of the above? How about 10^12... the mathematical compliment of a pico... some minor part of a googol. Fm: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 To: Tony Anderson 76703,4062 Brother -- talk about a spoil sport! Truly you have a BS degree. (grin). Fm: Tony Anderson 76703,4062 To: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 Yes... and I sling it all the time. (grin) Fm: Dave Thomas 70526,1117 To: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 Poor l'il Tony is trying to say "one trillion"; tera, of course, is from the Greek "teras" meaning "monster." That would be for the ordinary folks like me; most likely you had in mind the REAL computerist's use as in "Terabit Memory" aka "TBM" as found in the ollllld Ampex system using reels of video tape; but each reel was capable of holding only eleven billion bytes. Hmmmm, methinks Mortimer would need a million of SoundSight's latest "Megabyte"s at $965 each before he could turn into a TBM. Probably my math is off on that though. Fm: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 To: Dave Thomas 70526,1117 Hmmm...definitely sounds more like a BA than a BS. Oddly(?) enough you did hit the nail on (or near) the head: My usual use for the term is in specing the storage capability of (yet to be built) spacecraft tape recorders. Gee -- these messages are under Kyo; may start a rumor of a new Kyo data storage peripheral (grin). Fm: Tony Anderson 76703,4062 To: Dave Thomas 70526,1117 Yes, but if you add a tera to a pico, you got nothin'! Fm: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 To: Tony Anderson 76703,4062 Seems like you would get a tera + a little bit. 1000000000000.000000000001 (approximately)! Now if you divide you will get 1.000000000000000000, it seems. Higher math! Fm: Tony Anderson 76703,4062 To: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 No, can't be... I don't think. Pico is 10^-12, Tera is 10^12, the two powers cancel, and leave you with 10^0 or nothin! Try it another way... add 1,000,000,000 to -1,000,000,000 and get 0. Try it another way, add 1,000,000,000 to .000,000,001 and get 1,000,000,000.000,000,001 Depends on how you do it. (methinks) That's one of my math professer's "Self Evident" problems. Fm: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 To: Tony Anderson 76703,4062 Wrong! -1,000,000,000,000 = - 10^12, not 10^-12. So your second result (which is the same as my addition) is correct. Powers only cancel when dividing or multiplying: 10^12 * 10^-12 = 10^(12-12) = 10^0 = 1 (not nothing!) Looking at it another way: A very big number (10^12) altered by a microscopic (picoscopic?) number is still a very large number -- always, -- if the alteration is to add or subtract the very small number. Fm: Tony Anderson 76703,4062 To: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 Well, no WONDER half of my programs don't work! Gee whiz... I was only a "little bit" off... about the difference between the moon and Jupiter, I suppose! (grin) Fm: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 To: Tony Anderson 76703,4062 Naw! It's probably from dealing with 10^12 in single precision variables. (grin)! Fm: Eiji Miura 76703,4311 To: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 Phil, "Tera" means "Buddihist temple" in Japanese. Fm: Denny Thomas 76701,40 To: Phil Wheeler 71266,125 Well, It looks like we have the kernal of a really facinating thread. You got all this, Phil? I'd hate to have any of it slip through the cracks!