Nano-

This article is about the SI prex. For other uses, see

Nano (disambiguation).

Nano- (symbol n) is a unit prex meaning one billionth".

Used primarily with the metric system, this prex denotes
a factor of 109 or 0.000000001. It is frequently encoun-
tered in science and electronics for prexing units of time
and length.
Examples:

One nanometer is about the length that a ngernail

grows in one second.

Three gold atoms lined up are about one nanometer

long.

If a toy marble were scaled down to one nanometer

wide, Earth would scale to about one meter (3.3 feet)
wide.[1]
One nanosecond is about the time required for light
to travel 30 cm in air, or 20 cm in an optical ber.

The prex derives from the Greek (Latin nanus),

meaning dwarf. The General Conference on Weights
and Measures (CGPM) ocially endorsed the usage of
nano as a standard prex in 1960.
When used as a prex for something other than a unit
of measure (as for example in words like nanoscience),
nano refers to nanotechnology, or means on a scale of
nanometres. See nanoscopic scale.

[1] The metric system was introduced in 1795 with several

metric prexes, of which, however, only six were adopted
as SI prexes by the 11th CGPM conference in 1960,
whereas myria (104 ) as well as double and demi were not
adopted. In 1873, micro and mega were recommended by
the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
The other dates relate to recognition by a resolution of the
CGPM.

1 References
[1] http://www.nano.gov/nanotech-101/what/nano-size

1
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