What is a prefix and why are they helpful with si units?

Question

please help need real soo for homework

Answer 1

A prefix is letters that are added onto a word to make it a whole nother word.

Take build for instance. By itself it means to make something by combining materials or parts.

You could add "re" or "un" to the beginning of the word and make a different word!

Rebuild means to build again and unbuild means to take apart.

To be honest I don't know what it would have to do with the metric system of units. But I figured I'd let you know about the first part. Good Luck!

Answer 2

I don't understand the "si units" reference, but a prefix is one or more letters added to the beginning of a word to change its meaning.  For example, the prefix "anti" means against, so if you don't want the water in your radiator to freeze in cold weather, you put antifreeze in.  The prefix "audi" means to hear, so you go to an auditorium to hear speeches or concerts.

Answer 3

this chart should sum it out for you.

http://www.virtualsalt.com/roots.htm

prefixes are used to denote decimal fractions and multiples of SI units and derived SI units.

It is suggested that in English, the first syllable of the name of the binary-multiple prefix should be pronounced in the same way as the first syllable of the name of the corresponding SI prefix, and that the second syllable should be pronounced as "bee."

It is important to recognize that the new prefixes for binary multiples are not part of the International System of Units (SI), the modern metric system. However, for ease of understanding and recall, they were derived from the SI prefixes for positive powers of ten. As can be seen from the above table, the name of each new prefix is derived from the name of the corresponding SI prefix by retaining the first two letters of the name of the SI prefix and adding the letters "bi," which recalls the word "binary." Similarly, the symbol of each new prefix is derived from the symbol of the corresponding SI prefix by adding the letter "i," which again recalls the word "binary." (For consistency with the other prefixes for binary multiples, the symbol Ki is used for 210 rather than ki.)