OT: Errors in Reporting

[Baker, John]

        In a half-hearted defense of reporters, let me just say that getting the facts straight is much, much harder than it sounds.  I think there is a tendency to read news reports and assume their accuracy; not, perhaps, on big, politically charged issues, but on more routine accounts.  If you have spent some time with reporters, you realize the extent to which they are just flailing, and that every news report should be taken with a grain of salt.

        Specifically with regard to the prefix yotta- (meaning multiplied by 10 followed by 24 zeroes [10^24], just as kilo- means multiplied by 10^3):  I wouldn't think it would be too questionable, since we know where it came from.  It was adopted by the 19th Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures in 1991 as part of the International System of Units maintained by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM).  According to a BIPM publication, at http://www.bipm.org/utils/en/pdf/si-brochure.pdf, "The names yocto and yotta are derived from octo, suggesting the number eight (the eighth power of 10^3); the letter "y" is added to avoid the use of the letter "o" as a symbol because it may be confused with the number zero."  Yocto- is the counterpart prefix for small units, 10^-24.  While the BIPM did not comment on why it thought that octo suggests the number eight, its explanation seems to make an Italian derivation less likely.

John Baker