🔍 Key Concepts
• Metric prefixes and their powers of ten
• Relative size of pico compared to milli (m) and micro (µ)
• How capacitance values like farads, microfarads, and picofarads compare in size
💭 Think About
• Start from a prefix you know well, like milli or micro, and recall their powers of ten. Then think: is pico bigger or smaller than those?
• Order these prefixes from largest unit to smallest: milli, micro, nano, pico. How many powers of ten separate each step?
• In electronics, typical large capacitors are in microfarads (µF). Picofarad (pF) capacitors are much smaller. How many powers of ten smaller is a picofarad than a microfarad?
✅ Before You Answer
• Verify the correct power of ten for milli (m) and micro (µ) first, then continue smaller by factors of 10⁻³ each step if needed
• Check that the factor you choose makes pico significantly smaller than micro and nano
• Before choosing, write out the power of ten as a full number (like 0.000000000001) to confirm whether it represents a thousandth, millionth, billionth, or trillionth