Volume 27 · Number 4 · Summer 2010
End Notes
‘Hella’ Big Number
If mega, giga and tera are deemed lofty enough to serve as prefixes for metric measurements, why not “hella”? At least that was physics student Austin Sendek’s thought one day in lab when he asked his labmate how many volts were in an electric field they were studying, and his labmate answered, offhandedly, “hellavolts.”
“I chuckled to myself and thought it would be funny if hellavolt were a real thing,” he said.
Other existing prefixes in the metric system used to designate the mathematical scale of a unit being measured end in the letter “a,” so the term fit. Currently, the metric system’s largest unit of measurement is the yotta, which is 10 to the 24th power, or a quadrillion. Because units of measurement jump by powers of three, the next as-of-yet unnamed prefix would be 10 to the 27th power, or 1 octillion, which is a 1 followed by 27 zeros.
Sendek started a Facebook page, mainly as a joke, to campaign for this bit of northern California slang to refer to the measurement of all things in the 10^27 scale. He has received an overwhelming response, including thumbs-up from those in the scientific community, with nearly 60,000 Facebook supporters at the time the magazine went to print. Sendek has also set up a blog and an online store to further publicize the idea.
Don’t Worry, Be Sunny
According to the website The Daily Beast, UC Davis ranks as the 26th happiest campus in the nation. The news site based its rankings on housing, nightlife and average freshman retention rate, but what really scored big points for UC Davis was its variety of dining options and lots of sunny days.
Art of Oaks
Visitors to the UC Davis Arboretum can now better identify some of the 84 different types of oaks found within the 10 acres of the Shields Oak Grove. Students from an art science/fusion class last fall created ceramic plaques that can be found along the newly constructed Oak Discovery Trail, dedicated in May. The plaques identify 35 of the oak species and also depict an insect related to the tree in its native environment.
“It is sometimes difficult for people to grasp the diversity of species present in Shields Oak Grove,” said Emily Griswold, assistant director of horticulture for the arboretum. “The plaques make it more accessible by emphasizing different characteristics of each tree and drawing attention to them through the art work.”