Fun_People Archive
29 Nov
The Zeppo explained

Date: Tue, 29 Nov 94 17:53:16 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: The Zeppo explained

Forwarded-by: bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: rob@plan9.research.att.com

From: a review by Walter Gratzer, in Nature, of 'The Dent
 Dictionary of Measurement'.

... but oddly, the smallest is atto, as in attomole, and zetto does not
appear (although it is true that it is very small).  I cannot remember
which physicist it was who suggested that zetto may have originated as
a misprint for zeppo, after the forgotten Marx brother, and that the
zettomole should therefore be followed by the chicomole, the harpomole
and the grouchomole.  (As the last corresponds to less than one molecule,
it could also perhaps be termed the benveniste.)

© 1994 Peter Langston