Talk:Kilo-

Move
This should be moved to kilo- and get a lowercase tag. See Talk:Micro for rationale. — Omegatron 17:48, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Hard drive size
Sorry, Am I being really dumb here? Surely if they sold you a 1 Tera byte hardrive, and you thought, ah that's only 1x10^12 bytes when actually it's (1024^4=) 1.0995x10^12 bytes then they're understating how big their drives are; and although I see some weak ethical argument in misrepresenting their product I personally won't be complaining.


 * Actually, harddrive manufacturers tend to write disk sizes with kB=1000 bytes, while RAM manufacturers tend to advertise RAM sizes as kB=1024 bytes. It says so in the litte writing that either on the disk or on the paper that comes with the disk. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.184.219.38 (talk) 22:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe you are absolutely right. The problem, though, stems form the fact that all SI-prefixes (kilo, mega, tera, etc.) come from the decimal system, therefore indicate powers of ten (mega = 10 to the sixth, kilo = ten to the third, etc.), whilst computers work in binary system, making all "relevant" numbers to be powers of 2. It is just an "agreement" that kilo in computing can mean the number that is a power of 2 which is closest to the regular "SI-kilo". I.e. 1024 (being a power of two [the tenth]) is closest to 1000 (being a power of ten [the third]) and can therefore be indicated by "kilo", which regularly / outside of computing indicates 1000. I wouldn't even believe that this constitutes a misrepresentation of a product, since by general agreement the SI units can be used in this context, even thought it is technically incorrect. Therefore nobody will believe that one kilobyte is actually exactly 1000 bytes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.75.4.75 (talk) 14:13, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Kilo, big or small letter?
Just a thought. Is the use of k/K/Kilo correct in the text? Isn't Kilo supposed to be (large) K and not (small) k as the other great numbers, i.e. not like the small numbers? In the computer section both k (in kb) and K (in KB) is used, wich does complicate the issue. (Thavox 11:28, 6 March 2007 (UTC))
 * The correct prefix for kilo- is a lower case k. Similarly, the hecto- prefix is a lower case h, and the deca- prefix is a lower case d.  It may be confusing compared to the other larger-than-unity prefixes such as upper case M and G, but that's just the way it is.  Goosnarrggh 15:07, 16 August 2007 (UTC)


 * However, it is not lowercase at the beginning of a sentence. Kilograms are the SI units of mass. The lowercase template which somebody slapped on here is totally inappropriate.  Gene Nygaard 17:15, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * You're absolutely right; the word, when spelled out, should be capitalized if it appears at the beginning of the sentence. However, for completeness, the abbreviated prefix 'k' always appears in lower case no matter what the circumstances.  Goosnarrggh 21:51, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

leave the "small" letters for small quantities. "one thousand" is not small, never in a million years Tabascofernandez (talk) 00:34, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Spelling
About kilo/chilio: the article currently says "Based on a proposal by Thomas Young, the prefix was often alternatively spelled chilio in early 19th century" without context. However, this puristic spelling was mainly limited to English. It might be useful to add that Young was a dreaded opponent of the metric system in England, that he ridiculed the French neologisms, and that the metric system had no legal status in England at that time. The system was legalised in 1864 by the Metric Weights and Measures Act, which introduced a single legal spelling in English, kilo. (Legalised in the US in 1866, ) The expression "proposal by Thomas Young" somewhat suggests that Young invented the alternative spelling chilio. However, Prieur explained in 1795 that the prefix kilo derived from kilioi or chilioi, but that after careful consideration the spelling kilo was chosen. It is a neologism, not subject to puristic conventions. The French law of 1795 that introduced the metric system in France introduced a single legal spelling: kilo. Ceinturion (talk) 16:01, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Kila, Mega, Giga
changing the ending vowel will harmonize it with its cognants Tabascofernandez (talk) 00:36, 15 July 2017 (UTC)


 * @Tabascofernandez: The prefix is used exclusively with o as an ending vowel, though. —C.Fred (talk) 00:45, 15 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Agree with C.Fred. Sorry, Tabas, but we don't edit Wikipedia based on someone's idea of what will "harmonize" anything. If you can find reliable sources showing that a serious proposal along such lines has been made, we could include that info (but I think it would not go in an article specific to one prefix). But the correct spellings will remain with "o" as the ending vowel until ISQ, etc., agree to change. Hey, cool nick though! Jeh (talk) 04:47, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

history
I removed the incorrect history statement "[The kilo prefix] was originally adopted by Antoine Lavoisier's research group in 1795, and introduced into the metric system in France with its establishment in 1799." In 1795, Lavoisier was dead, and there was no "Lavoisier's research group". In 1793, Lavoisier did something else, he determined the mass of the grave, the predecessor of the kilogram. At that time the prefix kilo did not yet exist. The metric system was established in 1795, not 1799. The history is better discussed in other articles such as kilogram, grave, History of the metric system. Ceinturion (talk) 23:45, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

1795/1895
Fix mistake. Surprizi (talk) 15:01, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry I was wrong.--Surprizi (talk) 16:07, 2 February 2023 (UTC)