Word: hellas
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...rest of the U.S., hella - Northern California cant for very - is a weird and uniquely annoying piece of slang. But to Austin Sendek, a physics student at the University of California, the word is a mark of regional pride, one that he thinks deserves immortalization in the annals of science...
...Sendek is the brains behind a burgeoning Internet effort to make hella- an officially recognized scientific-unit prefix, representing the magnitude of 1.0x1027, expressed by the number 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. What started as a joke between a few of Sendek's friends has become hella popular, growing into the loftily named Facebook group "The Official Petition to Establish 'Hella-' as the SI Prefix for 10^27," comprising nearly 50,000 like-minded nerds and fans of NoCal parlance. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries...
...Sendek says the idea for hella- came to him while working in a physics lab with a partner in February. "We were looking at this electric field, and she said there were hella volts in this field," Sendek says. "We started thinking that it'd be pretty funny if a hellavolt was a real thing, or a hellameter or hellagram." Sendek started the Facebook group for his inside joke but says he was surprised to see it explode after a reporter from the Sacramento Bee discovered the effort. Since then, Sendek has advocated for his cause on radio shows from...
...history has taught us anything (Ron Paul for President! Snakes on a Plane!), it's that even the most dedicated of Internet campaigns have a tough time achieving much in the real world. And despite his efforts, Sendek says he doubts hella- will become an officially recognized prefix anytime soon. After the story in the Bee, Sendek says he received an e-mail from the chairman of the Consultative Committee of Units at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, the group tasked with creating worldwide standards for scientific prefixes. "He said he appreciated the humor but didn't think...
...website at hellapetition.com soon, and like any good Internet entrepreneur, he's trying to cash in on his viral success by selling T-shirts. "I've realized there's a pretty big nerd base out there," Sendek says. If nothing else, Sendek's quirky effort will be a hella good résumé line when he graduates from college...