To
become official, "hella" would have to jump through quite a few
bureaucratic hoops. It would have to pass through the Consultative
Committee for Units (CCU), one of 10 advisory committees of the
International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM). If the CCU
recommends it the CIPM, that board must then decide whether to advance
the cause to the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM), the
official authority that can make changes to the SI system.
That international organization, based in France, includes members from 81 countries.
"I
think that for a number of reasons it's a long shot," said Ben Stein, a
spokesperson for the National Institute of Standards and Technology,
the U.S. organization that handles measurements. "The types of things
they would consider are is it needed, does it add or reduce confusion,
are the names consistent with other names associated with the prefixes?"
Sendek
argues that the name would honor the scientific contributions of
Northern Californians, who have famously popularized the phrase "hella"
to mean "a whole lot."
Soon the word "hella" may not be associated with California surfers as much as with scientists in lab coats. A physics student is petitioning to add "hella" to the International System of Units (SI) as the official designation of 10 to the 27th power, or a trillion trillions.