How do I pronounce $10^{-12}$?

Question

I am aware that $10^{12} = 1,000,000,000,000$, which is called a Trillion.

$10^{-12} = \frac{1}{1,000,000,000,000}$, which means 1 divided by a Trillion.

The question is how do I pronounce it. Would I speak it as "ten to the power of negative twelfth", "ten to the power of negative twelve" or something else better? Could someone please give a hint? Thanks in advance.

Welcome to Mathematics Stack Exchange. How about a trillionth? — J. W. Tanner, Apr 01 '20 at 07:06
Once my math prof said, "Notion is important, not notation". So basically it doesn't matter what you say about $10^{-12}$ if it is understandable then mathematicians will understand that. — Sujit Bhattacharyya, Apr 01 '20 at 07:07
@J.W.Tanner's suggestion is good, provided you're happy your audience will understand trillion to mean $10^{12}$ rather than $10^{18}$. — J.G., Apr 01 '20 at 07:13

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 01 '20 at 07:27

I agree with Sujit's comment that there are many acceptable pronunciations and you shouldn't stress too much about picking the "best" one. As a native speaker all of the following sound fine to me:

ten to the negative twelfth
ten to the negative twelfth power
ten to the negative twelve
ten to the power of negative twelve
ten to the minus twelve
one ee negative twelve (ok, maybe avoid this one around the pure mathematicians ;))

and I'm sure there are many other perfectly fine variations and permutations of the above.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 01 '20 at 07:17

1

I would say: "ten to the negative twelfth". Or, to be more precisley, you can add the "pico" prefix before the unit of measure.

answered Apr 01 '20 at 07:17

Matteo

6,581

Thank you so much. Would you please give some reference? – WXJ96163 Apr 01 '20 at 07:19
@WXJ96163: see this Wikipedia's page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico-. – Matteo Apr 01 '20 at 07:20

How do I pronounce $10^{-12}$?

2 Answers2