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Starting electronics
Even smaller values of current are possible: a thousand millionth
of an amp is a nanoamp (unit: nA); a million millionth
is a picoamp (unit: pA). Chances are, you will never use or
even specify a current value smaller than these, and you will
rarely even use picoamp. Milliamps and microamps are quite
commonly used, though.
It’s easy to move from one current value range to another,
simply by moving the decimal point one way or the other by
the correct multiple of three decimal places. In this way, a
current of 0.01 mA is the same as a current of 10 µA which is
the same as a current of 10,000 nA and so on.
Table 1.2 shows, similarly, how volts are related to smaller
values of voltage. Sometimes, however, large voltages exist
(not so much in electronics, but in power electricity) and so
these have been included in the table. The smaller values correspond
to those of current, that is, a thousandth of a volt is
a millivolt (unit: mV), a millionth of a volt is a microvolt (unit:
µV) and so on — although anything smaller than a millivolt
is, again, only rarely used.
Voltage name Meaning Value Symbol
megavolt one million volts 10 6 V MV
kilovolt one thousand volts 10 3 V kV
volt — 10 0 V V
millivolt one thousandth of a volt 10 -3 V mV
microvolt one millionth of a volt 10 -6 V µV
nanovolt one thousand millionth of a volt 10 -9 V nV
Table 1.2
Comparing volts with smaller and larger voltages
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