this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That's actually an interesting one.

The 'p' could have a different meaning for a variety of languages. 'Puissance' in French, 'Potenz' in German, 'potential' or 'power' in English, 'pondus' or 'potentia' in Latin, or 'Potens' in Danish (probably the Danish one originally, since it was a Danish chemist who first introduced the measurement).

It's very fun that because of the vagueness, various languages can have its meaning directly translated to their own.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

All those words have the same meaning.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

And the same origin, it's not a coincidence they all start with P

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

There's also pico-, prefix for 10^-12