order of magnitude An order of magnitude is an approximation of the logarithm of a value relative to some contextually understood reference value, usually 10, interpreted as the base of the logarithm and the representative of values of magnitude one. Logarithmic di ...

is usually a

factor Factor, a Latin word meaning "who/which acts", may refer to: Commerce * Factor (agent), a person who acts for, notably a mercantile and colonial agent * Factor (Scotland), a person or firm managing a Scottish estate * Factors of production, ...

of ten. Thus, four orders of magnitude is a factor of 10,000 or 10⁴. This article presents a list of multiples, sorted by orders of magnitude, for

units of information In computing and telecommunications, a unit of information is the capacity of some standard data storage system or communication channel, used to measure the capacities of other systems and channels. In information theory, units of information a ...

measured in

bit The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented a ...

s and

byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...

s. The

is a common unit of measurement of information (

kilobyte The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The International System of Units (SI) defines the prefix '' kilo'' as 1000 (103); per this definition, one kilobyte is 1000 bytes.International Standard IEC 80000-13 Quanti ...

kibibyte The byte is a units of information, unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character (computing), character of text in a computer and for this ...

megabyte The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Its recommended unit symbol is MB. The unit prefix ''mega'' is a multiplier of (106) in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one megabyte is one million bytes o ...

mebibyte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...

gigabyte The gigabyte () is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix '' giga'' means 109 in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one gigabyte is one billion bytes. The unit symbol for the gigabyte is GB. This defini ...

gibibyte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...

terabyte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...

tebibyte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...

, etc.). For the purpose of this article, a

is a group of 8 bits (

octet Octet may refer to: Music * Octet (music), ensemble consisting of eight instruments or voices, or composition written for such an ensemble ** String octet, a piece of music written for eight string instruments *** Octet (Mendelssohn), 1825 com ...

), a

nibble In computing, a nibble (occasionally nybble, nyble, or nybl to match the spelling of byte) is a four-bit aggregation, or half an octet. It is also known as half-byte or tetrade. In a networking or telecommunication context, the nibble is ofte ...

is a group of four bits. Historically, neither assumption has always been true. The decimal

SI prefix The International System of Units, known by the international abbreviation SI in all languages and sometimes pleonastically as the SI system, is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of measurement. ...

es '' kilo'', ''

mega Mega or MEGA may refer to: Science * mega-, a metric prefix denoting 106 * Mega (number), a certain very large integer in Steinhaus–Moser notation * "mega-" a prefix meaning "large" that is used in taxonomy * Gravity assist, for ''Moon-Eart ...

'', ''

giga Giga ( or ) is a unit prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of a short-scale billion or long-scale milliard (109 or ). It has the symbol G. ''Giga'' is derived from the Greek word (''gígas''), meaning "giant". The ''Oxford English Di ...

'', ''

tera TERA is a shielded twisted pair connector for use with Category 7 twisted-pair data cables, developed by The Siemon Company and standardised in 2003 by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) with the reference IEC 61076-3-104. The ...

'', etc., are powers of . The

binary prefix A binary prefix is a unit prefix for multiples of Units of measurement, units. It is most often used in data processing, data transmission, and digital information, principally in association with the bit and the byte, to indicate multiplicatio ...

es ''

kibi Kibi may refer to: * kibi (binary prefix), an ISO/IEC standard binary prefix for units of digital information * Kibi District, Okayama (吉備郡; -gun), a district in Okayama Prefecture, Japan * Kibi, Wakayama (吉備町), a town in District, Wak ...

'', ''

mebi A binary prefix is a unit prefix for multiples of units. It is most often used in data processing, data transmission, and digital information, principally in association with the bit and the byte, to indicate multiplication by a power o ...

'', ''

gibi A binary prefix is a unit prefix for multiples of units. It is most often used in data processing, data transmission, and digital information, principally in association with the bit and the byte, to indicate multiplication by a power of ...

'', '' tebi'', etc. respectively refer to the corresponding power of . In casual usage, when 1024 is a close enough approximation of 1000, some of the decimal prefixes have been used in relation to computer memories to mean the binary power, but increasingly from 1998, standards bodies have chosen to limit the resultant confusion by disallowing when software displays a binary quantity with a decimal prefix. Microsoft operating systems still report file and free spaces on a storage device in this casual sense. Note: this page mixes between two kinds of entropies: #

Entropy (information theory) In information theory, the entropy of a random variable is the average level of "information", "surprise", or "uncertainty" inherent to the variable's possible outcomes. Given a discrete random variable X, which takes values in the alphabet \ ...

, such as the amount of information that can be stored in DNA # Entropy (thermodynamics), such as entropy increase of 1 mole of water These two definitions are not entirely equivalent, see

Entropy in thermodynamics and information theory The mathematical expressions for thermodynamic entropy in the statistical thermodynamics formulation established by Ludwig Boltzmann and J. Willard Gibbs in the 1870s are similar to the information entropy by Claude Shannon and Ralph Hartley, develo ...

. For comparison, the

Avogadro constant The Avogadro constant, commonly denoted or , is the proportionality factor that relates the number of constituent particles (usually molecules, atoms or ions) in a sample with the amount of substance in that sample. It is an SI defining con ...

is entities per mole, based upon the number of atoms in 12 grams of

carbon-12 Carbon-12 (12C) is the most abundant of the two stable isotopes of carbon ( carbon-13 being the other), amounting to 98.93% of element carbon on Earth; its abundance is due to the triple-alpha process by which it is created in stars. Carbon-1 ...

isotope. In 2012, some hard disks used ~984,573 atoms to store each bit. In January 2012, IBM researchers announced they compressed 1 bit in 12 atoms using

antiferromagnetism In materials that exhibit antiferromagnetism, the magnetic moments of atoms or molecules, usually related to the spins of electrons, align in a regular pattern with neighboring spins (on different sublattices) pointing in opposite directions ...

and a

scanning tunneling microscope A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a type of microscope used for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, then at IBM Zürich, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986 ...

with

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...

and

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish ...

atoms. This could mean a practical jump from a disk to a disk.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Orders Of Magnitude (Data)

Data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpret ...

See also

References