When I first moved to San Francisco, the phrase “hella” was everywhere. It hadn’t yet reached the rest of the nation so it sounded foreign and strange. To be honest, I still think it’s a little bit weird when people use hella (or worse, hecka) to describe something. Nevertheless, I’ve adjusted to the use of the word and there have been times when trying to describe something that the best description that came to mind was that the thing was “hella” whatever it was.

The word doesn’t seem to be used quite as often these days as it was when I first moved here. However, people do still use it to describe a lot of something, a big amount … and one student is really pushing for that to become a permanent thing. UC Davis physics student Austin Sendek is petitioning for hella to become the official word used to describe the number that equals one trillion trillions (or 10 to the 27th power).

Some facts that support his petition:

• Northern California has played an important role in science over the years. This designation of a word unique to this region for such an important scientific indicator would honor that role.
• Right now the largest number that there is a word for is 10 to the 24th power. However, as we begin to learn more and more about the far reaches of the universe, we are going to need to be able to name even greater distances and amounts.
• It might be a weird name for a number but is it really any weirder than some of the existing prefixes which include yocto and zetta? In fact, this five letter word seems to fit right in.

Tags: big numbers, facebook petition, hella, northern california, science, sendek